Werewolves - The Ugliest Of All
As sure as one can be that the sun will come up in the west and set in the east, Werewolves will release an album a year; at least for the next four years. What a time it is to be alive. Ten Death Metal albums (with blackened tinges) in ten years. If Werewolves follow the same model of nine song albums, then they will have released ninety songs by the end of 2029 (ignoring the Deathmetal EP). Werewolves are truly dying for us, and The Ugliest Of All is consistent with their brand: obnoxious, rude, in your face, and abrasive.
Naturally this kind of output will put pressure on labels to meet physical production, distribution and marketing costs (among others). Werewolves cannot tour the world each year, and with other projects, they only play a sprinkling of shows. This sees Werewolves move to Back on Black for the release of The Ugliest Of All.
Werewolves has always had a catchiness to them, mainly due to the incredible phrasing of vocalist Sam Bean. That hasn’t been completely removed here, but as a whole, the album is a battering of hate and ugliness. Werewolves balance the hatred between themselves, their fans, the industry and the world. No one here gets out alive.
A barrage is underestimating the assault that comes at you with the first song, “Fools of the Trade.” Matt Wilcock’s riffing is top tier elite modern Death Metal. What I love about his playing is that he never settles into one riff or pattern for too long. While the album is very intense, fast and unapologetically brutal, there are still some moments where things get a little mid paced, and there is a good example of that at the half way point of “Fools of the Trade.” “I want to be Offended” showcases Sam’s vocal brilliance. Much like Matt, his style and delivery is constantly changing. He has different levels, all of them adding much needed variation to the onslaught going on, drummer, Dave Haley, being a determining factor there.
“Skullbattering” is nasty and pulls zero punches, and if you thought that things could not get more intense then you are wrong, because “Unoriginal Sin” ups the ante. It is a masterclass of Death Metal guitar playing. “The Enshittification” and “Logorrea” continue matters, while also showing a variation in pacing. While the album is brutal, there is still groove all over it, and it also flows very well, and before you know it, the album is over and you want to play it again.
However, with an album a year, it is challenging to sit with each album for a while and absorb it in context to what else is happening in the extreme metal scene, or for that matter compare it to their back catalogue. What it does do is capture lightening in a bottle. These guys are at their creative peak. Soon they will be old and fat and ugly, so they are doing what they can when they can. The beauty and ugliness of Werewolves is that you can’t take any of it seriously, and that is cool.
Ten albums in ten years leans one to conclude that there is not a lot of editing going on, or all the other bands in the existence of music are shit and can’t write or record anything that doesn’t take three years. Alternatively, Werewolves want you to think this, but in fact they are meticulous work horses and don’t sleep, hence the joke is on you. Or, they want you to think that they are work horses, when in fact they are actually just taking the piss and writing the same songs over and over again. I don’t care either way.
My fear for Werewolves is that they will become derivative of themselves, only due to the fact that sometimes ideas need considerable time to germinate and fester, and it is healthy to second guess yourself as a creator, and edit and rewrite, and seek inspiration from the world, history or experience. But Werewolves has not faltered yet, so I think that they can get even uglier than this, and better than this. But at the moment, this is brutal and killer Death Metal.