What time is it Mr. Wolf? Can it really be 20 years since I was majorly impressed by Wolf’s second album “Black Wings”? Released at the time on No Fashion Records, it was an absolute bugger to get hold of in the UK, but worth the effort, showing big leaps forward in the band’s sound since their 1999 debut. Of course, two years later the band were snapped up by Massacre Records, who released the even more impressive “Evil Star” and then proceeded to re-release the bands two previous efforts…which pleased me immensely, but it meant that this talented, and quite unique Swedish Heavy Metal band finally had the chance to reach a deservedly much wider audience. So as Wolf look out proudly from their stable home since 2006 at Century Media, where exactly has album number nine taken them since those distant times?
Well…Honestly, if you enjoyed “Black Wings”, “Evil Star” and all the pearls in between right through to 2020’s “Feeding The Machine”, then “Shadowland” is effectively, and thankfully more of the same. There has been a maturity to the bands song-writing and performance getting progressively more obvious in their slightly retro full force Heavy Metal style over the last ten years or so (naturally), and the band deliver that with the same energy, drive and audible enthusiasm that they have always had. “Shadowland” has urgent rhythms, fuelling the riff-laden twin guitar assault, whilst the enigmatic, instantly recognisable NWOMHM-esque vocals of Niklas Stålvind sell every track with the vigour we have all come to expect. Wolf never overdo an arrangement – but in a good way. there’s a memorability to each song, riff-wise as well as vocally and there are choruses, but never an overblown, majestic Power Metal type affair, following instead a more traditional, time honoured Heavy Metal chorus – this album has them in spades. All crowned by Stålvind’s strained sounding vocal chords hitting every note perfectly, as if he is striving desperately for every note…when in fact, he’s nailing them with effective ease as usual – but it all adds to that irrepressible Wolf-ness.
It seems a little dismissive to say in a review that a band has done another album as good, and in a similar style to their previous releases, but in the case of Wolf, it would be a travesty if it wasn’t. Though the band seem to be able to now pluck darker or lighter moods from their own back catalogue, reminding us that there has been a subtle change in their sound at times, it’s just that each album was so damn consistent that in hindsight we might just miss it. Don’t analyse it, just enjoy it – “Shadowland” is simply Wolf at their best…again. I’m sure I say that every time a new Wolf album comes along…and if Wolf keep turning out records like this, I don’t see the need to stop saying it any time soon.
(8.5/10 Andy Barker)
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