Powerwolf - Wake Up the Wicked
Genre: Power Metal -You know what I almost ding dang forgot? Powerwolf - the once mighty, powerful Powerwolf - have released a new album. Well dang! Okay, first let’s go back a few years, to their last full length, Call of the Wild (2021) which was wildly underwhelming at only a single track above average quality. Brings me back even further, that. Remember about six, seven maybe eight years ago? Power metal was having the time of its life, a renaissance of colour, a burst of melodic comebacks that harkened the genre’s youth; albums like Elvenking’s Secrets Of The Magick Grimoire (2017), Symphonity’s King of Persia (2016), or what about Pyramaze’s massive Contingent (2017) and even Veonity’s Legend ofhe Starborn (2018). Even Powerwolf were part of it as they pushed into the mainstream with Blessed and Possessed (2017). These days are long fucking gone. Honestly, Powerwolf have grown into one of the biggest power metal acts on the planet in the last half decade, and it’s not all undeserved. These fellas are great songwriters and great musicians and they’re headed by an even greater front man. But where they’re heading I just cannot follow; there is no depth, no passion to their music anymore.
Anyway, with this here new album - Wake Up the Wicked - Powerwolf seem really content to just plod along the same pattern and doing nothing of interest, churning through three minutes of uninteresting riffs and repeated melodies. Gone are the days of build up to explosive choruses, eerie wolven chanting and massive riffs and solos. Oh, all those elements are there, but in a way watered down form, and there’s nothing memorable about any song on here; as soon as each new song begins, the previous one is swiftly forgotten. Might be unfair to say since most the album consists of them, but it feels heaps like Wake Up the Wicked opens on filler material. Bless ‘Em with the Blade does away with all kinds of build up and just jumps straight into the chorus, then runs with it for like two minutes. So the songs are mostly around three minutes - and most have a short, keyboard-y intro to set the stage - then swiftly jump into the power chords and Attila Dorn churning the same nonsense about women’s sex organs or mater maria or whatever what-have-you battle you give zero fucks about.
Okay to be fair, the same criticism could pretty much be given for every album they’ve released, but somehow it feels more egregious here; the total runtime for eleven tracks is well shy of 40 minutes - a practice that seems to have become standard in modern power metal. 1589 would be the exception, harkening some old Blessed & Possessed vibes. And it’s also the longest song on here, at a whopping four minutes and four seconds! The difference between then and now? Let’s... let’s not be that guy, you can tell. There’s little effort beyond the label going “guys we need a new record”. Powerwolf have gotten complacent, and they don’t give a shit anymore. If they even pretended to care about anything, they still pronounce “vargamor” incorrectly. Closing track Vargamor exists only because Sabaton has made the Swedish power metal scene a money cow. But the Swedish market deserves a better quality of power metal. Shit, the power metal scene deserves a better quality of power metal. This kind of crap is why I can’t find it to review stuff anymore, it’s all dumbed down crap and it’s both insulting and depressing. Powerwolf can do so much better, but I don’t see it happening. Plus one point for Thunderpriest though, that one was pretty cool.
Standout tracks: 1589, Thunderpriest
