Wolverine – Still / 2006 Candlelight / 9 Tracks / http://www.candlelightrecordsusa.com / Reviewed 23 August 2006

The immediate thing that individuals can hear from Wolverine is that they were fans of the theatric metal, in a tradition that stretched from the days of Rainbow and Dio all the way to Queensryche and finally into the present day with Cellador, Blind Guardian, and Dragonforce. The thoughtful compositions that open up “Still”, specifically “A House of Plague” need nothing in the way of vocals to bring forth tremendous emotion. When the vocals do start up during this track (which happens at two minutes in), the track takes a completely different tack than it had previously. By the time that Wolverine gets to “Bleeding”, individuals can hear that the band has taken hints and tips from bands that were playing in the last five to ten years.

Where there are a number of allusions to earlier metal styles, the band is firmly planted in 2006. This is not to say that Wolverine is fundamentally lacking in some of the qualities that mad emetal bands like the aforementioned Queensryche so great in the late eighties, but that the band actually has the vision to take newer musical styles and incorporate them into a tried but true style. The one thing that individuals can even begin to question during “Still” would have to be the wisdom present in putting three of the disc’s longest tracks as the opening trilogy of tracks. While the band wishes to create an identity for themselves with these three iconic tracks, the fact is that both “Bleeding” and “Taste of Sand” seem to be a half minute or so too long. This has the effect of wrecking any momentum that Wolverine may have received during their opening “A House of Plague”. Wolverine does not go into thrash metal when the track is only four minutes long; in fact, during songs like “Nothing More”, Wolverine removes themselves even further away from what is generally called “metal’.

In fact, the piano entry into this track is something more close to what Queen or Elton John would pick up and place on a disc. As it is, the track works, but it does not provide the metal “oomph” that is to be expected during an album like this. Wolverine is an act that tries to stand the current metal genre on its ear, and while some of the experiments that the band tries does not work, most the time, the results are interesting and listenable.

Top Tracks: Sleepy Town, A A House of Plague

Rating: 5.8/10

[JMcQ]