POWERWOLF - Lupus Dei

11 songs
43:31 minutes
***** ****
Metal Blade

Bandpage

More than two years after their extraordinary debut (Return In Bloodred), Powerwolf, the band around the eccentric Romanian front man Attila Dorn are back with another possible milestone in the history of metal. If you believe every detail in the band info, the album was record in a 12th century chapel and mastered at a professional studio in Gothenburg. Even if the procedure has been quite unusual, the result should satisfy a lot of metal fans.

The album starts with a short dark intro before it continues with We Take It From The Living, an organ-based metal track with a strong epic touch. And that’s already a huge change compared to their debut. Powerwolf are putting less weight on doom metal, but show a stronger tendency for metal hymns. You should especially pay attention to the ultra-harmonic guitar lines which you normally only hear from Iron Maiden. There is a certain NWOBHM touch in the music, although an obvious Merciful Fate influence is present as well. The album also contains a lot of up-tempo tracks that remind me of early Blind Guardian releases. Really brutal parts are hard to find on Lupus Dei. The title track at the end of the album is the heaviest song, containing bizarre choirs and wolf howls. The most important part of Powerwolf’s music are the melodies which are easy to remember. When listening to the album for a second time, you can already recognise a lot of parts. The frequent use of organs, choirs and prayers gives the music a somehow mysterious and dramatic face.

It’s difficult to find favourite tracks on Lupus Dei as there is no single black-out. Powerwolf’s music has so many different sounding faces that their music should be suitable for fans of retro heavy metal, true power metal, doom metal and even tolerant black metal. This is so far one of my metal highlights of the year 2007.