Wolfbane - Wolfbane/Bethany's Sin

Published March 06 2010

*=Staff's pick	Wolfbane* Leave Me See You In Hell Elric Of Melnibone* The Howling Midnight Lady*

Genre	NWOBHM	Gramie Dee	Vocals
Tracks	6	Gramie Dee	Guitar
Runningtime	34 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Shadow Kingdom Records	Dale Lee	Bass
Release	03 December 2009	Syd Mercury	Drums
Country	England	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	Diamond Head, Praying Mantis, Cloven Hoof, Blood Money

It's been said many times, and by more than just myself-heavy metal is on a decided downswing. Many styles and sub-genres are becoming stale, derivative, commercialized, and have consequently lost their relevance. Combine this with the demise of many important record labels, the throwaway, momentary nature of digital music, and the decline and fall of the major heavy metal publications and the future looks decidedly bleak for our beloved sound.

Have metalheads lost track of their roots? Have we forgotten the days when metalheads were part of a community, who traded tapes, handed out flyers-and actually attended shows? Do we need an antidote to the breakdowns and blastbeats that have become de rigueur tricks of the ailing trade? I believe so, and Shadow Kingdom Records was kind enough to send me just that: a dose of Wolfbane. They have rereleased the two demos that this classic band produced in the early 80s, and in doing so they have provided us with a denim draught of pure metal, precisely the potion to alleviate the aural agony of the aggression-agued.

I was not surprised to see a slightly low-budget production in this case: The cover art and insert are simply, but not cheaply done. This, however, is preferable in this case to the garish and gilded, as it better conveys the fact that not only are these indeed demos, but from an age where computer-generated imaging did not exist, nor did the means for a small label to effectively mass-produce "perfect" looking records! The cover art itself is wonderful-a hand-painted image of the wolfman himself, clad in leather astride his iron steed, grinning, well, wolfishly, bathed in the glow of a full moon and the shocked glances of onlookers! Inside the insert was a handy history of the band in place of lyrics. Between piety and poverty, bikers and booze, this was a band with a consistent run of bad luck.

Sonically, this is the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal at its zenith. Equal parts Sabbath gloom and hard rock swagger to the tune of screaming guitars, this sound was the prototype for everything that was to come. Gramie Dee is a typical singer for the period, delivering his tales from the darkside in a nasal screech that never becomes abrasive or annoying. His stunning guitar sound is typical for the period: Amps-on-eleven, bashing chords, cascading feedback, and wah-drenched solos are the order of business here. None of the other instruments make any sort of solo appearance. This style was about attitude and serving the song: a lesson today's metalheads should learn and heed.

There are only six songs on this disc, as this was the only recorded output of this trio's career-and more's the pity. We begin with a Vincent Price-like narration over a mountain wind, which explains how Wolfbane turns men into monsters. Immediately following this is the band's eponymous manifesto, whose dark chords lope along in a triple-meter swagger. These are not the angsty were-teens who follow the Twilight path--these beasts are out for blood. Following this is Leave Me, a slow treatise on glistening hard rock attitude and love lost.

Many bands have covered serial killers as lyrical material, but in those days the clichés had not yet become so. See You In Hell is a grand multi-part rocker which begins with a flesh-crawling narration by the reaper's right hand man, then plods along slowly and mournfully as the killer falls in love with his victims, then dolorously dispatches them. The song launches into a faster solo section, giving Gramie Dee a moment to shine, before dropping back into the doomy shamble of before.

The songs which follow were recorded a year later and released as a demo under the title Bethany's Sin, and they display a band branching out stylistically. Elric Of Melnibone is pretty self-explanatory: Fans of British Sci-fi legend Michael Moorcock's albino anti-hero will find lots to enjoy here, say nothing of fans of Manilla Road's loud rock storytelling. In an age full of Elric epics, this thirty year-old masterpiece stands with them all, if not above them, in its masterfully simple form.

The Howling is based upon the film of the same name, in which a hapless man meets a woman who is a werewolf, and so is her family. The song is an acetate excursion of cascading guitar echoes and simplistic riffing straight from the early NWOBHM days.

Closing out the disc is Midnight Lady, an oft-told tale of the ladies of ill-repute. We return to the triple-meter swagger, but with the addition of a guitar lead duel, picking up where Thin Lizzy left off in the late 70s, and where Iron Maiden would continue into the 80s and beyond. The song is tough yet sleazy, a combination which most of the 80s glam metal bands failed to master time and time again. Unfortunately this would be the last the world would hear from Wolfbane for two years, until the members reformed in 1984 as Blood Money, and carried on undeterred.

So let us take a moment, in this day of ailing metal, to remember the place from which all of these myriad sub-genres came. They all stretch from the industrial towns in England, where those who were tired of Punk and Disco got together to find a sound all their own, and succeeded in creating music which was dark, dangerous, heavy, original, and utterly non-pretentious. Listening to these Wolfbane demos is a wonderful reminder of our roots as metalheads, and of the glory days they represent. There would be no Thrash Metal, no Power Metal, No Black Metal, No Speed Metal, No Metalcore--had there been no New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	8,5	7,5	7	8,5

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Nate