Review Summary: — Now, what can we get you, sir?
— Everything! I am so hungry! © The Master (Doctor Who)
It has been a long time since I gave a proper listen to anything released by Wolfsbane until my recent decision to revisit and review the band’s body of work. My interest in Blaze Bayley peaked back in 2010, around the time when Promise and Terror was released. Since then, I have been following his solo endeavors quite diligently, yet not as passionately as I used to. Which also meant that I haven’t revisited his or his band’s older stuff for quite a while. Of the three initial Wolfsbane albums, their second LP was the one I barely even remembered. And it turned out to be the one that puzzled me the most upon revisiting.
It so happens once in a while that a musical artist releases a wonderfully eclectic album, crossing genre boundaries, bending the rules, and experimenting for the sake of pure creativity. The core audience is puzzled yet delighted, crossover appeal is reached, and everybody is shocked and awed by the sheer power of artistic expression.
Then again, sometimes an artist (say, a hard rock or heavy metal band) is not sure where exactly he wants to go, so he tries to hit the audience with everything he has in store, thus producing an uneven and unfocused release consisting of peaks and valleys, and everything in between. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with Wolfsbane. There is a number of ways for a hard rock outfit to take after releasing the first record to moderate success, and it seems like Wolfsbane chose to take all of them, including the ones I couldn’t even imagine!
This meandering nature of the album becomes apparent from the start, even though the first two tracks don’t actually deviate from what we’ve heard on “Live Fast, Die Fast.” They are hard-rocking songs with lyrics covering the subject of beer and the circumstances in which this beverage is consumed. The qualities that both tracks lack are cohesiveness and memorability. Next, the band tries to calibrate their gears towards catchiness on “Ezy,” which ends up being too fluffy and light-headed for my taste. Also, in my opinion, we don’t hear a worthy guitar solo until the track number four. Still, the band doesn’t stray too far away from what we’ve already heard on their debut LP. Not yet.
The next couple of songs (“Broken Doll” and “Twice As Mean”) actually feel like a breath of fresh air with softer, atmospheric guitar passages in the verses and a more contemplative mood in general. The band also returns to this airier style later on with the track “After Midnight.” These are well-crafted songs that provide a welcome deviation from the norm, at least within the context of this particular band’s sound. Still, that’s not where the real action starts.
For their next move Wolfsbane amp speed and intensity up to the level unheard on “Live Fast, Die Fast.” Just listen to that yell Bayley lets out almost as soon as “Cathode Ray Clinic” kicks in! “Loveless” follows suit, defying any expectations of hearing yet another sappy ballad that I’ve had based on the track’s name. Yet another of the more muscular songs is “Temple of Rock” which follows a bit later, and I’d say that testing out their speed limits is the smartest move made by Wolfsbane on this LP. The actual ballad is also present, and is an improvement over the last album’s “Tears from a Fool.” “Moonlight” is not so clichéd and, surprisingly, its style reminds me of what a Ukrainian band Boombox did years later on their slower songs (they’ve gained some notoriety after their recent collaboration with David Gilmour on a rendition of a traditional Ukrainian song). However, this track could use some development, as it barely clocks over two minutes, thus feeling more like an interlude before the last song on the album comes in.
This is when the train really goes off the tracks, as the band has decided to close off the LP with an actual country song! I must admit that “Dead at Last” does provide a little bit of fun, but my general attitude towards country can be summarized in a quote from the recent “Dexter” revival series: “Could you turn down the hillbilly music a little?!” As my own personal bias against country matches that expressed by Clancy Brown’s character in said series, I can only feel grateful for the fact that at least Bayley does not try yodeling here.
I almost feel bad giving such a low rating to “Down Fall The Good Guys.” In my opinion, a controversial experiment is frequently better than a solid yet predictable repetition of the established formula. Still, the band doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether it wants to move on or stay close to the sound that worked on “Live Fast, Die Fast.” What's worse, the actual experiments are often not that daring, and/or feel underdeveloped/rushed. However, the good news is that the first chapter of Wolfsbane's story does not end on this fizzling note.
