ALBUM REVIEW: Loyal To The Soil – Wolf King
Blackened hardcore may not exactly be a new concept in 2018, but when it’s done well it’s still one of the most exhilarating mesh of styles the world of heavy music has to offer. After just a few notes of Loyal To The Soil, the debut full length from Bay Area noise merchants WOLF KING and their first record on the renowned Prosthetic Records, it’s pretty clear that this monolithic slab of violent evisceration is on course to be one of the genre’s most devastatingly brilliant entries in recent memory.
Opening salvo Hail the Ash launches out of the traps with such raw aggression that it sounds like it’s about to smash your head in with a brick; piercing vocals backed up by a thunderous orchestra of razor sharp riffing and ferocious intensity. The record as a whole contorts and changes form as if it’s made of lava, one moment deafening you with blasts of pace (Further), the next crushing your soul under the weight of melancholic, doom-influenced destruction (Loyal to the Soil II).
The slower, lumbering passages add real depth to the album, elevating it above your bog standard hardcore record and putting it on a level footing with the most exciting bands in rock and metal. That’s not to say that WOLF KING are sacrificing their hardcore roots at the expense of their ambition; far from it. Greater Power, despite sounding like something coughed up from the depths of hell for the first minute, soon takes off at break neck pace and acts as an aural embodiment of a car crash, only with a faster top speed and the throttle stuck at full.
When they do however let themselves slip into darker, more metallic territory, they sound absolutely demonic. Worthy of the Dead is a cataclysmic behemoth that is as brooding as it is menacing, slowly peeling away the layers to reveal the very blackest of cores. The whole album feels as if it’s a time bomb, ready to explode at any given moment, and when the meticulous, measured façade falls away to be replaced by the next sky shattering breakdown, all you’re left with is a chasm devoid of life and a sense of crushing emptiness.
This is far from an easy listen then, and it’s certainly not the kind of record that you’d use to convert a pop fan into a devout follower of all things heavy. If you’re looking to introduce a hardcore fan to the realms of extreme metal however, this could well act as the perfect gateway record, as there are more than enough elements on display here that transcend both genres. WOLF KING may not have quite created their magnum opus this time around, but on this evidence it might not be long until they unleash a genuine masterpiece on our unsuspecting ears. Watch this space…
Rating: 9/10
Loyal To The Soil is out now via Prosthetic Records.
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