01. Intro to Death
02. Phantoms of Madness
03. Cemetary by Night
04. Lycanthropic Aeons
05. nataS fo tsaeB
06. All Shall Be Eaten
07. Shadows, Howling and Doom
08. Wolf Skin Mask
09. Return to the Shadow of Death
10. Cenotaph (Bolt Thrower cover)
Comment:
Debut album of this finnish band featuring DEMILICH's frontman Antti with DEATHCHAIN members. Pure old school nordic Death Metal in the vein of ENTOMBED, DEMIGOD, CARNAGE, BOLT THROWER, DEMILICH, AUTOPSY, DISMEMBER, OBITUARY... perhaps the most fresh, intense, heavy and "perfect" album since "Left Hand Path"!!
Los fineses Winterwolf van a sorprender agradablemente a todos los adeptos al old school death escandinavo. Formados ya en los 90, editaron un par de demos alrededor del 2000, pero no llegaron (entre cambios de formación y cambios de nombre) a editar su primer larga duración hasta ahora, despues de reformarse en 2007.
Winterwolf captan todo el encanto del death como lo recordamos de los primeros años de la explosión escandinava, el sonido "Sunlight" de las guitarras incluído. Tiene su toquecillo de crust, estilo que también estaba en auge por aquel entonces, resultando en temas mayoriatariamente a medio tiempo, correosos, oscuros y sucios, pero a la vez llenos de melodías pegadizas y ritmícas (por ejemplo en el comienzo de "Lycanthropic Aeons"). La sección de ritmo sin embargo no se limita a marcar el compás, sino que es bastante elaborada, lo que hace los temas interesantes, y mete bastante kaña. Un gran tema: "nataS fo tsaeB", machacón y simple a primera oída, pero lleno de detalles y bien construído. Dentro de los medios tiempos de repente hay algunos arranques de velocidad. La verdad es que "Cycle of the Werewolf" es divertido tema tras tema, los títulos de las canciones incluídos. Como último tema el disco incluye una versión de "Cenotaph" de Bolt Thrower, que pega perfectamente con el estilo de todo el disco.
Corpse (Deathchain, Demilich, Forgotten Horror, etc.), K.E.Pestilence (De Lirium's Order), E.R.Insane (Shade Empire, De Lirium's Order), Abomanitor aka Antti Boman (Demilich) and Rotten aka Tommi Virranta) (Deathchain, Survivors Zero, etc.) are Winterwolf (the former name for Deathchain) - and Winterwolf have devotedly decided to stick with the old guns, so to speak.
CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF is the debut full-length album of these 5 Finnish werewolves - and it pays indescribable homage to the past Swedish underground death metal circa 1988-91 as far as the album´s content is concerned. The songs on this album come as close to that legendary Swedish late eighties/early nineties sound that it would be very easy to mistake Winterwolf´s album as a product from those golden times of the Swedish heavy, crisp and downtuned death metal. Winterwolf have basically managed to resurrect that magical, Thomas Skogberg-Sunlight sound combination really well yet so deceptively subtly on their debut album – and I gotta believe it has naturally a lot of to do with everything all that music that you can actually find from these fellows´ own, personal music collections. They all seem to dig their Nihilists, Entombeds, Dismembers, Carnages, Centinexs, etc., like all these classic Swedish death metal forces would mean the only world to them through a couple of decades – and whatnot if the result can be anything as this impressive and jaw-breaking.
Vocals on this very ear-nailing album have been split by Rotten who does most of the death grunts here – and Antti of Demilich, who still sounds ridiculously inhuman with his hyper-guttural, croaking vocal lines that are not from this world. Both guys do their share amazingly well vocal-wise – and now when you actually come to think of it, they have truly understood what their roles demand from them in order to get exactly the right vibe and feeling vocally pushed into the songs of this album. Both guys have succeeded 100% with this particular goal in question – absolutely!
If CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF had been released at the same time as, let´s say, Carnage´s DARK RECOLLECTIONS, or Entombed´s LEFT HAND PATH or Dismember´s LIKE AN EVER FLOWING STREAM, then this album would have definitely been considered one of the most classic Scandinavian death metal albums among others, too - there´s just not the slightest doubt of it. The familiar, crisp buzz saw guitar sound is strongly yet so beautifully present on CYCLE; done only the way so many Swedish death metal acts did it some 20 years ago.
And as if this isn´t enough, also the album cover itself – a B&W drawing reflecting blood-craving werewolfs with a red Winterwolf logo on the top of it, stays also adorably truthful to the past Scandinavian underground death metal times (reminding me a bit of Megaslaughter´s CALLS FROM THE BEYOND album cover on the French Thrash Records, released in 1991).
CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF has been released as 12" LP vinyl format on a limited run of 500 copies only, so act fast if you are still going to get your own copy of this gem. However, one should keep in mind that this will also be released later this year (or early 2010) as CD format, so all of you lazy yet so lucky bastards can consider this as your last straw then to get it for your own collections. And please be sure to really get this ingeniously done record for yourselves because this truly is worth your every cent/penny/chewed gum.
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