ALBUM REVIEW: Satanic Scum Punks – Wolfbastard
Heavy metal as a whole may have started in the heart of the West Midlands, but it’s Tyneside where black metal was born. It’s over four-and-a-half decades since VENOM welcomed everyone to hell on their debut album, but their blend of punk and metal with bludgeoning riffs and growled vocals is still heralded and admired, even if ‘black metal’ itself moved on in a more harsh and Scandinavian way. Manchester’s WOLFBASTARD wear their influences on every inch of their skin, the trio blazing their own trail while remaining as close to the original blueprint as possible. It’s been four years since third album Hammer The Bastards, so the world was overdue a new studio album from the trio, but that arrives on Friday, 13th March; fourth effort Satanic Scum Punks is released via Apocalyptic Witchcraft.
Those of a certain age will remember the adverts for wood protector product Ronseal and its legendary catchphrase ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin’. The same hook can be applied to those bands who carved legendary careers out of a signature sound that deviated little – AC/DC, MOTÖRHEAD, STATUS QUO and, as they hope to do, WOLFBASTARD. It means Satanic Scum Punks really does live up to its name, 11 tracks of in-your-face, unrelenting blackened punk that blast through in less than half an hour. Even the album cover understands the assignment, a hand protruding from a leather biker jacket, sporting (appropriately) a Snaggletooth thumb ring and clenching a broken, glass bottle. It’s threatening and malicious, and absolutely perfect.
As for the songs themselves, opening It’s Fucking Dark starts off quite serenely, with big power chord riffs and a melodious, NWOBHM lead coming in over the top. That lasts all of fifty seconds before vocalist Derek ‘Dez’ Carley lets rip a guttural scream and the track bursts into life. The title track is the only song to clock in at over four minutes in length, but powers through with a seismic groove from drummer Dave Buchan and the momentum doesn’t let up from there. F.O.T.D – which stands for Fuck Off, Then Die – is a brand new mosh anthem waiting to be unleashed on live audiences, Blood On Steel‘s lyrical content taps into the occult with its words on sacrifice and the pun-titled , 97-second Manic Street Creatures explodes without warning before going on to talk about eating chicken; no, really. Closing track B.I.F.F.O finishes the album in style, a song that actually gets quite serious as it laments the current dysfunctional state of the United Kingdom, but ends with a huge cry of ‘Fuck Off!‘ which is both a) really funny and b) such an excellent way to rubberstamp the record.
WOLFBASTARD aren’t inventing the wheel by any stretch of the imagination, and for some that will be an immediate turn off. But if you want something that’s no-nonsense, distilled to the purest point and just a lot of fun, then Satanic Scum Punks could well be the sleeper hit of the year. All hail the Dark Lord; all hail WOLFBASTARD.
Rating: 8/10
Satanic Scum Punks is set for release on March 13th via Apocalyptic Witchcraft.
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