Wipe yourself down. Strap yourself in. I hope you have been to the bog coz Wolfbrigade are back to drag you by the short and curlies through all the dirt and filth 2024 have to offer. They have been kicking out their brand of Swedish D-Beat Crustcore since 1995 and there is certainly nowt to fix here.
I watched a show on Youtube recently by Tied Down TV a Punk Rock Opinion show. The subject of the recent episode was bands that appeal to both metalheads and punks. Two of the bands celebrated were Motorhead and Discharge. If you have ever listened to Wolfbrigade before, you know that they are the perfect blend of those two seminal acts with of course a big slab of Anti Cimex the Swedes with whom they shared their original vocalist.
“Life, Knife, Death” not only hits it out of the park from the first chord it scares the shit out of those two buggers stuck on the ISS for extra months.
Ways to Die erupts with a squealing guitar solo which is squashed by a rampant riff and the mayhem begins. Of the 12 tracks on the album only the final track “Age of Skull Fuckery” offers any respite. I can only think that Wolfbrigade provided this couple of minutes of what sounds like warped movie clips and noise to give a “cool down” after the tracks that came before it.
Whether it is the crazed D-Beat fury of tracks like “Disarm or Destroy” or the brilliantly titled “A Day in the Life of an Arse” or the groovy dirty crust n roll of the title track which has me rasping “Tombstones, In rows” like a grinning loon this album bleeds pure attitude.
The spirit of Lemmy is well and truly alive in ”Unruled and Unnamed” and “Cyanide Messiah”. Wolfbrigade have the same organic, rebellious outlaw spirit that Motorhead injected the rock world with. Just like Motorhead this album is chock full of melody with guitar breaks that are reminiscent of early Gothenburg sound and classic metal topped off by gruff anarcho vocals that will appease the most militant black acolyte. “Nail Bomb” is as straight forward and vicious as the incendiary vice it is named for.
Ah fuck it – the more time I spend talking about this album the less time I can spend flailing my ragged, aging body around to it.
Go buy this album. Don’t stream it. This is no corporate soundtrack to prop up Spotify and Apple. This is loud, angry, rock and fucking roll.
Ya mum always said to eat ya crusts!
(9/10 Matt Mason)
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