Wolf - The Black Flame
March 21 2008 at 02:33:51 AM
I'm convinced that only Europeans and the embittered still enjoy Heavy Metal. Not Heavy Metal as in the music created directly after the fizzling out of the hippie counterculture, not the cherished records that even now, to those of us born in the Eighties, seem almost ancient. I mean the bands that are still apeing that shit twenty years later. Sweden's Wolf has had a pretty successful career staying true to that formula, arriving at the same time both the American Nu-Metal market took off and European death and black metal groups began to converge toward an openly melodic sound, improved production and catchier song-structure. (Amusing to note that the band's label, Century Media, has licensed this album to California's Prosthetic Records, a label known mostly for catering to a metalcore audience.) When I listen to those early records what I enjoy most, besides the nostalgia and composition of songs, is being able to trace their influence through different categories of music that developed afterwards. Here there is no extension, the reason only to reference and consume and even then they are a disappointment. The Black Flame is "heavy" in a very modern sense—over-produced, stiff and predictable with little dynamics between tracks. But there's guitar solos. In short, if you're unfamiliar with Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate and dozens of other groups from that era (let alone a forgotten British group of the same name), you really cheat yourself becoming involved with this record. For those that are, well, "everybody has their vice."
[Todd DePalma]
Wolf
The Black Flame
2006
Prosthetic
http://www.prostheticrecords.com
_001[1].jpg "Ratt - Infestation")
.jpg "Spooky Fingers: Binge")
print
email
RSS
list
big
small
TWITTER