(Andy Synn gets ready to run with the wolves again, ahead of the release of their new album this Friday)
There’s a commonly held belief… or a tacit acceptance, at least… that bands tend to mellow out as they get older.
Of course, those of us in the “extreme” scene know that this isn’t a universal truth by any means, even if there’s still an (understandable) tendency for a lot of bands to get a little slower, and a little more melodic and/or proggier, as they get age.
Legendary Swedish Crust-crew Wolfbrigade, however, don’t just disagree with this trend, they outright reject it, hence the title of the manifesto (“Notes on Failed Domestication“, which I think would have made an even better album title, to be honest) that accompanies their new record, describing it as:
“A signal flare for the hungry, the wild, the wicked. For the outlaws, the freaks, the punks and queers who see the world for what it is: a padded cell of screens and slogans, engineered to keep the body tame and the spirit numb.“
And, trust me, there’s nothing tame about this album.
Now, what a lot of our readers – those already familiar with the band’s brand of rugged, d-beat driven “Lycanthro-Punk” anyway – will probably want to know is how Howls from Underground compares to the band’s early works… or, at least, where it stands in relation to the group’s 2024 comeback Life Knife Death.
And while it’s no Prey to the World or Damned… let alone another In Darkness You Feel No Regrets… there’s no doubt that the band’s twelfth LP is as ripping and as raging as they’ve ever been (who else would have the balls to open with a song succinctly titled “Caveman Motherfuck”?) while also benefitting from a little bit more spit and polish around the edges.
But perhaps just as important – if not even more so – is the question of whether Howls from Underground, aka Notes on Failed Domestication (you know it’s a better title), is a good jumping on point for new fans, since the best way for a long-running band like Wolfbrigade to thrive is to keep on adding new members to the pack.
Which perhaps explains why riff-happy riot-anthems like “Doomrunner”, the hellishly hooky “Cold War Bootlicker” (an obvious candidate for the album’s best track), and the Motorhead-meets-Disfear grunt ‘n’ gallop of “Headhunter” feel so vital and vibrant, as the band clearly aren’t content to just preach to the choir or play to the cheap seats.
That doesn’t mean, obviously, that they’ve drastically changed their sound by any means – the likes of “Fat Man Hellscape” and the tooth-gnashing title-track could slot in pretty much anywhere in the band’s back-catalogue with barely any tweaking to make them fit – it’s more that Wolfbrigade continue to refuse to be pigeonholed as just some sort of “nostalgia act”, and want you to know that they’re more than capable of holding their own against anyone you might name from the modern Crust/Punk/Metal scene.
It helps, of course, that some of the album’s stand-out tracks share some hybrid DNA with some of the more racuously metallic bands which our readers should already be big fans of – early highlight “When Dogs Cry”, for example, is as gnarly and snarly as The Crown at their crustiest, while the Black Breath-esque death-rattle of “Man Is Wolf to Man” feels like a full-circle moment from a group who inspired a whole generation in the early 00s – but even here it’s important to note that that classic Wolfbrigade sound remains as dominant as ever.
Sure, they say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks… but it turns out old wolves don’t need new tricks when their teeth are still this sharp.