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intothewellsabyss
Nov 14, 20224 min read

Bolt Thrower - Honour – Valour – Pride (2001)

FROM THE CRYPTS - CELEBRATING PAST ALBUM RELEASES in the HISTORY of HARD ROCK & HEAVY METAL… BOLT THROWER DOUBLE HEADER!



On November 14, 2001, Bolt Thrower released the seventh full-length studio album Honour – Valour – Pride via Metal Blade Records.


It was recorded and mixed at Sable Rose Studios in Coventry, England, June to September 2001. It was produced by the band and Andy Faulkner. Honour – Valour – Pride is the only full length Bolt Thrower album not featuring Karl Willetts on vocals. It is also the only album to feature Benediction’s Dave Ingram on lead vocals.



Background:

After a short European tour in 2001 (which only consisted of 5 dates), Bolt Thrower started to work on Honour - Valour - Pride, the bands follow-up to their 1998 release, Mercenary. The release shows a progression from the direction taken on Mercenary, containing nine tracks of pure, slow, grinding Death Metal; the digipak included one bonus track. Honour - Valour - Pride marked the exit of drummer Alex Thomas and the return of Martin Kearns to the band after he settled his things in his life.


In 2001, upon the release of Honour - Valour - Pride, Bolt Thrower bassist Jo Bench was interviewed by Voices From The Darkside. Here are some excerpts from that interview…

“…we started recording it in June and we finished mixing it in the middle of September. It was done at Sable Rose Studio in Coventry, and Andy Faulkner co-produced. It was the longest we had spent in the studio – we wrote a few riffs and vocals in there, so we made full use of our time in there! It was the second time we had total control over the production and we are still learning, but overall we’re pretty pleased with how it came out." — Jo Bench

"Karl just decided he couldn’t commit himself to the band 100% like in the past, so we all thought it was best if we found someone who could…
Dave (Ingram) was the only choice. We’ve obviously known him for a long time and always thought he was a great vocalist/frontman, and when he helped us out at the WFF festival we realised how well he fitted in Bolt Thrower. The general reaction has been positive – obviously Karl was a hard person to replace, he was part of the band for 10 years, at first it was hard for us too, but we are happy to have a strong line-up again, and now it feels like Dave has always been there." — Jo Bench on Karl Willets exit from the band and Dave Ingram as choice of new vocalist for HVP.

“It (the album art) was done by Jan Meininghaus. He did the chaos eye design on Mercenary’and we liked it so much we asked him if he wanted to do the new one for HVP. He said yes, and that he would like to have a try at doing the cover, we told him what concept we were looking for, and he got back with a really good sketch. There was a lot of ideas going backwards and forwards (thanks again to the internet!) and finally we agreed on the final cover. We always want to be involved in as much as we can in every aspect of the band, so we were 100% involved in all the booklet designs. Gav did the symbols on the lyric pages, and the whole layout was a joint effort between Jan and the band." — Jo Bench on the album art for HVP.

On the albums lyrics, Jo Bench stated;

"In the past Karl and Gavin wrote the lyrics, so now Gavin writes them with Dave. Obviously the theme is the same (and always will be), and once we had got the whole concept behind HVP the lyrics seemed to come pretty easily."

"Alex just wasn’t into the band 100%, he was into a lot of different music styles and I think he found being in Bolt Thrower a lot harder than he imagined. We can’t have anyone in the band that isn’t totally committed, so in the end we decided he had to leave. I phoned Martin one day and asked if he wanted to re-join, and he said yes, so now the line-up is totally solid again and hopefully we won’t be losing any more members." — Jo Bench on the exit of drummer Alex Thomas and the return of Martin Kearns.

Critical Reception:

Upon its release, Honour – Valour – Pride received a critical backlash in which it still receives today. So, I am not going to bother sharing any of the outside reviews for this album. Instead, I thought that I would share these snippets (above) of an interview with Jo Bench. I will say, F*ck the critics as HVP is an outstanding album that I still listen to quite often. — E.N. Wells



Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells



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