Wage War Brings The Swamp To The Ritz Raleigh

Wage War unleashed their latest EP, It Calls Me By Name, on April 17, 2026 via Fearless Records. The first track, SONG OF THE SWAMP, was released earlier in the year to rave reviews. On April 28th, The It Calls Me By Name Tour launched in Tucson, AZ. Wage War brought along NEVERTEL and ORTHODOX to open up every date of the tour, which comes to a close this weekend in St. Petersburg, FL.

I was pretty excited for this tour, as it had been a couple of years since Wage War had come by on a full headline tour. This is a band I feel as though we have watched grow over the past few years from small opening spots on tours to bigger headline tours. Wage War sold out many of the dates on the current tour. When the band rolled into The Ritz in Raleigh, NC on May 27th, it wasn’t fully sold out, but it was very close. There was a huge line just waiting to get inside for this huge general admission room before doors opened. Once they did open, that room got full quickly!

Orthodox got the show started that night, they are a metalcore band from Nashville, TN. I wasn’t familiar with them; however they were such a great opener. They already had fans moshing and crowd surfing to the front in the first song! They were a perfect choice to get the crowd pumped up from the beginning. Nevertel came up next and this band features a mix of genres. They had a very high energy set that made the crowd just want to move and everyone really enjoyed it.

When Wage War finally hit the stage, that’s when you saw their full stage set up which was full of camouflage and various types of swamp weeds. When the band launched into “4 x 4”, which is off their latest EP, it was dark, the lights had turned green, and it looked like the band was actually appearing out of the depths of a swamp. I catch this band every chance I get, and I believe this was easily my favorite tour I have seen.

Wage War brought fans a gigantic headline set list. They played every track off of It Calls Me By Name, plus tons of favorites from their previous albums. This tour, the band has been offering crowds the option to play certain songs by vote. When asked if the crowd wanted to hear “Relapse” or “Who I Am”, they realized they had come up with a tie. Fans went crazy when asked, so the band did the natural thing, and played both for them. In total, Wage War gave the audience a full 20-song set list. Fans sang along, moshed, crowd surfed, and were even found passing around some inflatable alligators during “Death Roll.”

Download/stream It Calls Me By Name: https://wagewar.ffm.to/icmbn

I’m Music Magazine Associate Editor/Photographer Daphne McKinney