Power metal is a repetitive genre. Has been for at least twenty years now. There are a limited number of tropes a power metal band can adopt and still be called a power metal band, and you can probably tick off all of them in your head as you read this. A small collection of bands have gotten extra mileage out of certain themes, like pirate metal or viking metal or Varangian metal, but in many cases those are just convenient window dressing for what, at its core, remains just a permutation of power metal.
And then there’s Powerwolf. Listing their talents and abilities on paper, there’s nothing that seems like it should so easily separate them from the sluggish quagmire of power metal below them, but much like sports, bands don’t play on paper. Powerwolf is simply better than all of their contemporaries; they’ve become a historical tentpole of the genre.
That doesn’t mean that they’re free from sins of their own – recent works have seen the bombastic Germans dip their toe in the pirate metal theme as well, albeit with some laudable success. And not all their albums are classics – they have a 1:1 ratio in their history of great album to ‘meh’ album. When Powerwolf hits right, though, there’s nobody who can hold a flame to them in their chosen splinter.
The band’s new album, “Wake Up the Wicked,” takes a couple listens to open up; it’s not as clearly attention-grabbing as its predecessor “Interludium” was, but with just a little patience, this record becomes the most versatile Powerwolf album to date.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the band is going to suddenly write dance bangers or bring down the house with cacophonous death metal pounding – everything on “Wake Up the Wicked” still sounds unmistakably like Powerwolf, but they’ve subtly introduced a few new elements that listeners haven’t heard from them before.
Skip down to “Heretic Hunters” for the first evidence – the beat and the riff belong on any number of Powerwolf records, but there’s a thin strand of synth in there, vaguely reminiscent of hurdy-gurdy music that’s new, and then Attila Dorn, forever the rafter-shaking voice of the genre, bites his lyrics off, rather than draw them out in his usual idiom. Throw in a surprisingly ugly (in a good way,) breakdown (by Powerwolf standards,) and you’ve crafted a unique PW experience.
Starting with the title track, there’s a quartet of songs that marks “Wake Up the Wicked” as an accomplished Powerwolf album, fit to share the shelf with those that have come before (and better than some.) The title track itself is just another classic in the long line of Powerwolf crowd pleasers – is it all that special weighed against the others? Nah. But it’s just as good, and will rile up crowds with its energy and singalong chorus just as well as any.
Then it gets interesting. “Joan of Arc” is so incredibly reminiscent of the cadence of the previous album’s “Sainted by the Storm,” that I did a double-take. But, as they say in my business, repeat your best stuff, you never know when someone is seeing it for the first time.
Then there’s a thrash song! Powerwolf hasn’t written a song like “Thunderpriest” since “Dead Boys Don’t Cry” in the previous decade. The song is all energy and power and relentlessness, for the entire duration of three-minutes and change. This is followed by “We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints,” which starts with a children’s chorus ripped straight from “The Wall,” and then careens into a pop-metal beat where every moment is singable and accessible.
Powerwolf is separated from power metal by being so good at all the intangibles of songwriting – pace, timing, selection, cadence, sense of the moment. Moreover, there’s no fat on the bones of “Wake Up the Wicked:” only one song goes past four minutes, and it does so by a paltry four seconds. Powerwolf seems to be the only power metal band working who remembers that fathers of the genre Iron Maiden started out with punk rock roots. This album is direct, to the point, and executed with experience and skill.
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