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Wan: Wolves of the north
21/09/10 || Khlysty
“Wolves Of The North” is another one of those “review-them-already” albums that da Lord puts up for grabs for us, from time to time. I picked it up without knowing shit about it or about the band and what I ended up with is really, really old-skool black metal from Sweden. And when I say “really, really old-skool black metal” I mean Venom-through-Hellhammer-through-Bathory-through-really-early-Mayhem old-skool black metal. With all the pros and cons this shit might mean.
Wan is a new (almost one-year-old) band and “Wolves Of The North” is their first record. Now, as you faithful readers of GD might have gleaned from earlier reviews, I do not hold really, really old-skool black metal that close to my darkened heart. So, I can easily tell you that I wasn’t exactly thrilled when I started listening to this record. I mean, yeah, it’s probably a valiant effort to try and find your inspiration from the stone age of black metal and, most probably, pay tribute to the trail-blazers of the genre, but, hey, it’s not like it hasn’t been done before; like, for a gabajillion of times.
One of the things that might turn into a deal-breaker for this record is the use of a drum machine. It’s not that it sounds totally synthetic or something –it doesn’t…-, but it fucking sounds like a drum machine and, sometimes, it was mighty put-offish, at least to my ears. Plus, the band mixed the drums in different ways in each song (sometimes really upfront, sometimes buried under the guitars), which is a bizarre choice. Speaking of the guitars, what their sound reminds me the most, is of thrash metal primitivism, since there’s not a lot f black metal’s trademarked tremolo-picking to be found here. It’s okay, but nothing to really come into your pants for.
Generally the songs are mid-to-thrash tempo’d with a bit of blasting white-out here and there and the vocals are run-of-the-mill raspy and quite reverbed. At almost 36 minutes, the album never overstays its welcome, and the fact that the band crams 13 songs into such a compact length guarantees that there’s a lot of variation, even though there are some tracks that sound more like sketches than proper songs. Anyway, the bottom line here is that this is not bad, but I have a feeling that it would not be considered a classic of the genre any time soon. Only for fans of really, really old-skool black metal who might not be fed up yet with the overabundance of such music.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Abyss Records
- Website: Wan MySpace
- Band
- Tsjud: vocals
- Aganaroth: guitar
- Isengrim: bass
- Tracklist
- 01. 13 Sons of the Devil
- 02. Hädanfärd
- 03. Död Kristen Man
- 04. Kingdom of Wan
- 05. Wargoat
- 06. Ursinnets Begär
- 07. Ulvhäll
- 08. Bortgang
- 09. War of the Unholy
- 10. Med Stormsteg Mot Döden
- 11. Rapid Satan
- 12. Rise of the Antichrist
- 13. Wolves of the North
