Review Summary: Vegan, straightedge, melodic death metal from Germany complete with blazing solos, fast riffing, and dueling vocals.
As of the past couple of decades, Germany has been producing many promising metal bands. The German thrash scene spiked considerably when Sodom, Kreator, and Destruction came to town. Nowadays Germany gave birth to a couple of melodic metal bands by the name of Fear My Thoughts and Deadlock. They have hooked me like a fish.
Formed in 1997 Deadlock have been producing quality metal and have kept improving over the years. I was first turned on to them by a friend . Listening to awakened by sirens, I was turned onto the band immediately with its dual vocal approach and furious riffs. I’ve been anticipating their new release for awhile and now it's here . Wolves is Deadlock at their prime. Combining fast riffing, solos a plenty, and enough double bass to satisfy me. The unique vocal shift sets them apart from most other bands and are quickly becoming one of my favorite metal bands.
It opens up with ''We Shall All Bleed and I hear blaring double bass and angry growls right away that give in to Sabine Weniger's beautiful voice during the choruses. Most of the songs have similar formulas with screaming verses giving in to clean vocal chorus's, with the exception of Losers Ballet. The duel vocals in this band are simply breathtaking that many people should find enjoyable. Johannes's brutal death growls pave way to the choruses where Sabine is given time to shine with her powerful voice. Brutality and beauty done right. Musically this CD is very diverse with plenty of melody and heaviness being balanced. The only faults I think that plaques this disk are the lyrics and the predictability of some moments. Some are just plain cheesy, some have foul language that is unnecessary, and some just express extreme hate to society trying to pummel everyone with their message. Also, during the melodic parts, more experimentation would have made the songs stronger. I noticed the melodic parts tend to stick primarily to Sabine, as she begins to sing during the chorus. For more diversity, the melodies should have been balanced equally between the two singers, which would've resulted in a more balanced attack of merging brutality and melody.
Sebastian Reichel and Gert Rymen pound furiously with a heavy groove oriented attack. That's not to say there aren't any solos. Solos are found everywhere on this disk. Occasionally orchestras are used to add diversity, being shown most prominent on Losers Ballet. This song has a very Dimmu Borgir like feel to it, due to the dark atmosphere given to the track and is by far the heaviest song on the album. No clean vocals from Sabine are present here, still a spectacular song regardless. As I said most songs are similar. However in some of the songs include some techno parts. End Begins is a perfect example of that. In the middle everything slows down and a techno beat comes in only later to give away to a blazing solo. The drumming is solid and plays it's part well with the swiftness and chaotic nature of metal. Tobias of course uses plenty of double bass but some cool patterns are found. Bass is practically nonexistent but still there. And of course there is a ballad by the name of "Where The Skies Are Blue". Also Deadlock is part of a myspace program called Avenging Animals.
Wolves is an album anybody whether you're a metal head or not can enjoy. Extremely catchy and heavy, this is bound to gather some attention sooner or later from the masses. I highly recommend this as it has great replay value. As long as Deadlock continue 's to pummel the people with their brand of metal I’ll be happy.
Pros:
Excellent dual vocal performance
Great guitar riffs, fast, heavy and technical yet still extremely catchy.
An abundance of well executed solos.
Great Drumming
Cons:
More experimentation between the songs could have led into an even greater album instead of rehashing similar ideas.
Lyrics are cheesy.
