HELL YEAH NEW WOLF! This time it’s the Death Satellite. I don’t know what a death satellite is, but I bet it’s pretty spooky. Maybe it’s part of that Event Horizon space ship. Wolf has been melting faces since 1995, and the first time I heard them was when a roommate in college discovered Black Wings “somewhere on the internet” and those opening guitars had me hooked. I claim them as the band that pivoted me from being like “yeah Metallica and Sabbath and Priest are pretty cool” type metal head into the “Well yeah this band is fun but I prefer the guitarist’s work in Sausage Assassin” annoying type of metal head. So thanks, Wolf! They dabble in themes of insanity, evil, and occultism. Maybe the death satellite is occult. Who knows!

The song starts with some haunty space noises before everyone kicks it into gear. The start feels very Wolf, with wandering guitar licks and big angry drums. The vocals are what you expect from Niklas Stålvind, with a solid edge. Apparently he plays bagpipes on some of their songs? I gotta go find that. Whoah the rest of the band adds some haunting calllling kinda vocals in the chorus. I was not expecting additional vocals like that, but they do make the death satellite more spoky. Oh hell yeah before the breakdown there’s some bass forward solo kinda stuff. Very slappy, very bouncy. We get some dual guitar rock poses before the solo, which isn’t super noodly but still fits the vibe really well. All in all this makes me excited for Hour of the Wolf, it comes out November 20th!

The video looks like it was shot on a foggy day in a foggy warehouse in foggy London town. Sometimes where’s a bit of a fish-eye or reverse-fish-eye lens, as though someone slipped me a mickey. But there’s tons of clips of the band shredding and kicking ass, which is fantastic. Would’ve loved to see the death satellite doing some death satelliting or something, but maybe they couldn’t afford a space launch.