Sonic Wolves – III
Argonauta Records – 2024
Hardrock, Garage, Seventies, Blues, Psych, Proto
Rated: *****
They hail from Alessandria, Italy and have been putting out music for over ten years. And with spurs earned in bands like Ufomammut, Pentagram and Mortuary Drape you can safely state that the Sonic Wolves three are a powerhouse power trio! And that their third album III is one that needs to be devoured as soon as it hits the streets! Well, you are in luck my friends! The release date is just around the corner, this Friday to be exact, and you are even more in luck if you follow Stoner HiVe by coincidence, cause we get to do the premiere today for this wild and wonderful record! The Full Album Premiere will be going live in a few hours, but first lets dive into their third full-sized album called III. An album fans have been waiting for, for more than six years. Formed in 2012 by drummer Vita (ex-Ufomammut) and bassist/singer Kayt Vigil (ex-Pentagram and ex-The House of Hasselvander) they found a new guitarist in Nico Nigro back in 2022. The new guitar blood resulted in Sonic Wolves evolving, becoming even more feral, dangerous, and having to lay down the tracks that will surely be coursing through your veins after that first time you hear III in full. Bursting out of the gates with that second single Shapeshifter, a wild, seventies inspired, proto loving, hard rocking battering ram that is chuck full of riffs, drums and amazing bass work! The way they make the chaotic and the excessive come together to form harmony and delight. It will feel like freedom personified, the ability to do whatever the hell you want. Which seems to be the main emotion throughout the record, which is also the main lyrical focal point on most of the songs. Jailbreak in the literal sense, like on Shapeshifter. Or escaping the prison of one’s mind, it's all there to hint at the freedom that hides within humans across the globe. Hitting you in strides, after that opener, is an eleven and half minute rocker called O.B.E. Which opens like a logical, expanding and explosive follow-up to Shapeshifter. Freak blues, freak out psych all rolled into one; but just before the halfway mark it slows down, dissipating into an ambient almost amniotic ebb and flow, a calm and tranquil rippling of sound, which does not immediately soothe the soul because of the eerie and haunting sounds floating around as well. Third track Dead To The World takes you back to the trash can kicking, freak out psych, seventies blues and garage. Highly energetic and powerful, the guitar once again is allowed to take center stage and furiously deliver his groovy and overwhelming axe-work. Dark Recollection, shifts down one notch, but only in tempo, not in the output showing off their technical tour-de-force. And where this kind of technical playing often lacks soul and groove, this isn’t the case with Sonic Wolves. It might tire you from spending all your energy to keep up, but it is never tiresome. On the contrary, its riveting and invigorating, it will have you bouncing off the walls and dancing on the ceiling. They slow down once more to atmospheric, spacey and calming sonic waters after three minutes of Heavy Lies The Crown. But that will be all the respite and ease you get, for the three tracks that follow are all blow out, festive, metal touched and full of vigor. III is highly explosive! Why yes! On their third full-sized album Sonic Wolves show us they like to burn the candle at both ends, and that those candles are sticks of dynamite! Sonic Wolves are here to make it all go boom!
(Written by JK)
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Check in again in a few hours to hear Sonic Wolves's III in Full!
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