Review of Deadlock - Wolves

Synopsis:

After the highly acclaimed Earth.Revolt and after seeing the awesome cover, I had high expectations for Germany’s vegan, black/death/metalcore act and their follow up to the conceptual prior album, however, my expectations may have been a bit high.

Review:

Wolves is not a bad album, far from it, it’s just not as good as Earth. Revolt. The band still play a nice balance of high octane Bleeding Through styled thrash, Dimmu Borgir styled symphonic/melodic black metal and injections of Lacuna Coil-esque female vocals from the always enjoyable Sabine Weniger, all wrapped up in a polished production, but for some reason the album is jut not hitting me as well as the previous effort.

I can’t put my finger on why. The songs are well written, well played and mix the above genres as well as any band around with lots of aggressive, taught thrashing such as blistering opener “We Shall All Bleed”, “Crown of Creation”, “As Words To Bullets” and “Bloodpact” along with more restrained mid paced, but still aggressive tracks like “Code of Honor”, “Broken Hearts” “End Begins” (with its wretched techno section) and the slightly too Dimmu Borgir-ish “Loser’s Ballet” (complete with epic mid song orchestral section). All flocked with black metal synths and Weniger trading off with the gruff growls and rasps of Johannes Prem, who to be honest sounds a bit forced on this album.

It’s just that nothing truly grabs my attention and the album seems a bit soulless and hollow despite the general high quality. That being said, I’m not reaching for the stop button-the album is just ‘there’ and hints at more mainstream songwriting. It’s weird. Also, Weniger’s presence seems to be increased and would not be surprised to see a full shift to female vocals in the future for a slightly heavier version of Lacuna Coil as per closing ballad “To Where The Skies Are Blue” (you read it here first). And to be honest, Weniger seems deserving of front woman status on par with Christian Scabbia, it would just be disappointing to see another band succumb to mainstream whims.

Anyways, I’m actually interested to see the lashes to this review and see if I’m wrong on this one or if other fans of the first album get the same case of the ‘mehs’ I have when giving Wolves repeated chances.

Release Details

Deadlock

Wolves

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