Wolfbrigade – Howl From Underground Review

Let’s get straight to the point here: I’ll tell you the three things you most need to know about Howl From Undergound.

1. It’s Wolfbrigade.
2. The first song is called “Caveman Motherfuck.”
3. It’s even Wolfbrigad…er than you think.

Starting at the top: Howl is a d-beat record.. errrrrr, a “lycanthro punk” record, to use the band’s chosen descriptor, which, in truth, is as good a term as any to describe them, feral as they are. Furthermore, it’s a record coming from one of the best in the business when it comes to this particular form of bruising hardcore… again, feral as they are.

So then, feeling a bit feral yourself, you push play. And the ferociously feral “Caveman Motherfuck” drops some thumping introductory chords before that d-beat comes barrelling out of the gate, fists a-flyin’ and hell-bent on hurtin’ someone, and fast. Micke Dahl’s voice boils up from below, as if his words are pushing through tar, forced with a gravelly power like some unholy spawn of Lemmy and Barney Greenway. The guitars weave around one another, injecting bits of raw-edged melody atop the cannonlike drumming. With only the slightest of pauses,”Doomrunner” picks up where “Caveman Motherfuck” left off, and the first space for breath finally comes in track 4, with the brief martial intro of “Born To Rot.” All of Howl From Underground is just pure, unrelenting fury, for thirty-one straight minutes – after the above, there’s “Cold War Bootlicker,” “Fat Man Hellscape,” “Man Is Wolf To Man…” It just doesn’t stop.

And yet, you say, that’s Wolfbrigade. And it is.

And yet, in that, it’s also this: In the ferocity that is synonymous with its creators, Howl From Underground is somehow more that, and more… Wolfbrigad…er. Returning to the pack for the first time in over a decade, drummer Dadde takes the already apparently limitless energy of Life Knife Death or Run With The Hunted, and proves that assumption false in short form. That energy is Wolfbrigade, and this is Wolfbrigad…er than that. Also, now working with an outside producer for the first time in a decade, the band hasn’t sounded this thick, this dark, this belligerent in a good while. Howl From Underground is cut from a heavier stone than the intentionally raw Life Knife Death and Reality and Run. It’s built of tarcaked guitar tones, furnace-blast voice, and that incessant beatdown beat, the trio combining in an almost hypnotic consistent crush. And that crush is Wolfbrigade, and this… this is Wolfbrigad…er than even that.

So yeah, if you haven’t guessed, I’m a fan of both the band and the record, and you should be, as well, especially if you’re predisposed to heavy as hell, hyperactive and hypnotic hardcore. So don’t be a caveman motherfuck about it and haul yourself over to wherever you consume your music and get yourself properly Wolfbrigad… ed.