D-Rok was a British

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

band notable for its

Warhammer 40,000 ''Warhammer 40,000'' is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is the most popular miniature wargame in the world, and is particularly popular in the United Kingdom. The first edition of the rulebook was published in September 1987, ...

-influenced lyrics. At the beginning of the 1990s,

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake (gam ...

began to diversify its activity, including combining its game world with music. As well as collaborating with

death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

band

Bolt Thrower Bolt Thrower were an English death metal band from Coventry. They formed in 1986 and released their first album with Vinyl Solution in 1988. The band then shifted to a new record label, Earache Records, soon becoming one of the best selling b ...

, whose Warhammer 40,000-themed album '' Realm of Chaos'' was released on

Earache Records Earache Records is a British independent record label, music publisher and management company founded by Digby Pearson in 1985, based in Nottingham, England, with offices in London and New York. The label helped to pioneer extreme metal by rel ...

, Games Workshop set up their own label, Warhammer Records, signing hard-rock acts such as Wraith and D-Rok. In 1991 the band released its only album, ''Oblivion''. The songs have the common theme of the universe in Warhammer 40,000 and the inlay reflected this by including black and white illustrations from Games Workshop's extensive portfolio of paintings next to the lyrics for each song. The cover, which originally appeared as the box art for the original Epic Space Marine tabletop game, was painted by artist

Jim Burns Jim Burns (born 10 April 1948) is a Welsh artist born in Cardiff, Wales. He has been called one of the Grand Masters of the science fiction art world. In 1966 he joined the Royal Air Force, but soon thereafter he left and signed up at the Ne ...

, and has subsequently been used on the cover of the

Black Library The Black Library is a division of Games Workshop (formerly a part of BL Publishing) which is devoted to publishing List of Black Library novels, novels and audiobooks (and has previously produced art books, background books, and graphic novels) ...

collection of short stories named ''Let the Galaxy Burn''. The band undertook a lengthy club tour to promote the record and secured a support slot with

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

and Wraith.

Members

The CD inlay of ''Oblivion'' names the members simply as: *Sigh -

Vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

*John Mac - Bass *Al Mogg -

Drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

*Chi -

Guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

"Sigh" is actually a

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

for Simon Denbigh, formerly of

The March Violets The March Violets are an English post-punk/gothic rock band formed in 1981 in Leeds, incorporating singers of both sexes, drum machine rhythms and echo-laden electric guitar, much in the style of fellow Leeds band the Sisters of Mercy. Seven ...

Brian May

D-Rok owes some popularity to the fact that

Brian May Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen (band), Queen. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Fredd ...

, guitarist of

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

played on two of the songs ("Get out of My Way" and "Red Planet Blues"). In an interview with ''

Kerrang! ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one- ...

'' magazine, lead singer Sigh explained that May had visited a Games Workshop store with his son, met the band, and offered his services. Sigh went on to say that May had not been offended when he was asked to tune up his guitar before recording his parts, and was the nicest rock star he had ever met.Kerrang Magazine

Discography

* 1991 - ''Oblivion'' - Vinyl,Cassette and CD releases Track listing # Noise Marines # King Hibited # Renegade # Turn This Ship Around # Litany - Into The Void* # Stealer's Kiss* # Oblivion # Red Planet Blues # Welcome To My World # Chainsaw Man* # Get Out Of My Way (* Early releases of the cassette version were missing these songs)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:D-Rok Warhammer 40,000 British hard rock musical groups