SLEEPWULF ~ SLEEPWULF ...... review

Seems a little like deja vu, Desert Psychlist raving about the release of an album by a Swedish band,  but when you hear the mind-blowingly awesome and authentic sounding self-titled debut full length album from Kristianstad's Sleepwulf (Cursed Tongue Records) we think you will be raving also.

Much like their fellow countrymen, Witchcraft, Sleepwulf take their musical lead not from the usual source of Sabbath-esque proto-doom but from those bands that danced around the edges of the seventies hard rock and metal scene. What you will be hearing while taking in the nine tracks that make up "Sleepwulf" are the musical essences of such cult legends as Warhorse, May Blitz, Leaf Hound and many other bands that didn't quite make the premiere league of 70's rock but are now thought of as underground icons. Now that statement might lead you into believing that Sleepwulf are some sort of revivalist combo, and in part this is kind of true, but although Sleepwulf's sound owes a huge debt to grooves born of another time it's attack and execution is very much of today. In keeping with the traditions of those bands whose sound Sleepwulf pay homage to the majority of songs on "Sleepwulf" are kept short, sharp and to the point, with only "Standing Stones" and "One Eyed Jailor" pushing past the five minutes mark, there are no meandering twenty minute guitar solo's to be found here, no overly complex arrangements that confuse and confound nor are there an endless array of constantly shifting time signatures to deal with, instead we get a dazzling collection of  superbly crafted rock songs built around that age old blueprint of intro, middle and outro, simple, basic and wholly effective.

Sleepwulf's "Sleepwulf" is an album made in the 2020's that sounds like an album made in the 1970's, an authentic sounding opus that will bring back memories to those who lived through that period but also one that will appeal to those that didn't and wished they had.
Check it out..

© 2020 Frazer Jones