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Each shell is curved into shape from a single sheet of SAS304 and TIG welded. On the outside of the shells, the join is invisible

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• Review

Tama's Warlord Collection began with a quartet of snare drums whose dramatic looks were matched by names verging on the bombastic. Overwrought titles and appearances aside, they were, and continue to be, serious high-end instruments.

In the wake of the success of the snare drums came the recent Warlord Exotix kit, a limited edition set of drums made from bubinga. Now, following in their footsteps, comes the Warlord Spartan, a striking seven-piece stainless steel-shell kit.

Build

Though stainless steel is one of the definitive shell choices for snare drums, whole kits made from it are far from common. Over the years various manufacturers have built stainless steel kits – the best known among them being Ludwig, whose popularity in this field is undoubtedly in no small part thanks to a British endorsee by the name of Bonham – but by and large steel is something of a niche drum kit-making material.

While all drum companies know how to make snare drums out of steel, progressing to an entire kit poses both technical and cost challenges and also guarantees a heavy set of drums at the end. Advocates of steel believe that it's a price worth paying. They cite steel's consistency as the key (there are no multiple layers of ply and glue involved and it is relatively unaffected by weather conditions) in giving drums a purer, more direct tone.

The Warlord Spartan is available in one configuration only, which is the kit pictured - 22"x18" bass drum, 14"x7" snare drum, 8"x7", 10"x8" and 12"x9" toms, and 14"x12" and 16"x14" floor toms. Production is limited to 50 kits worldwide, and out of these a mere three are destined for the UK.

"The bass drum was, quite simply, extraordinary. It gave a murderously deep, powerful response that found every corner of the room it was played in.There were no overtones or shuddering darkness to complicate things, just a taut, saturated blast of bottom end".

The shells are made from SAS304 stainless steel, apparently the most popular material in the metal industry. Each of them is curved into shape from a single sheet of SAS304, and then TIG welded. A clean join is visible inside the shells, but on the outside it is impossible to discern. This is even more impressive when you consider that the shells are effectively one ply thick, so the join would have been obvious on the exterior at the time of welding.

Tama has opted for slight differences in the thickness of the shells across the kit: the bass drum is 1.5mm thick, the 16" floor tom is 1.2mm thick, while all the other drums conform to a thickness of 1mm.