Having a great time with Powerwolf!

I continue to enjoy my dive into the metal genre and the Power metal sub-genre has its hooks in me. I stumbled across a band by the name of Powerwolf (excellent name BTW) and their music has been amazing, so I wanted to talk about them.

While I have listened to multiple albums & artists, I have found a few things that hasn’t worked for me. Certain styles of singing are not my jam, some of Opeth’s earlier albums for example are not for me. Not that think the singer isn’t skilled at what they do, but I want to enjoy the lyrics and growling or screaming is incomprehensible to me. A friend of mine says he thinks of it as another instrument, but my brain just doesn’t work like that.

Amo metallum!

With Powerwolf the vocals are delivered with power and clarity but at the cost of language. I have come to accept that as someone who is enjoying Power Metal, there’s going to be some Latin strewn about (and maybe the odd bit of German) and I can figure it out after the fact. It doesn’t detract from the songs, indeed on the track “my will be done” the Latin intro has a lot of presence and demands your attention.

Looking good!

Now I have been enjoying building my collection of vinyl records, I have made a display wall in my living room showing off some of my absolute favourite bands. Powerwolf has made their entry into this list without issue and their album art goes ridiculously hard!

More of this!

Interludium is their latest album and was released in 2023 with the standard edition having 2 discs and the limited has 3. Although streaming platforms have all 3 discs. The band have done two things I haven’t encountered before.

The first disc is the album as normal. Disc two is covers from various bands of Powerwolf tracks. I wish more artists did this as it has introduced me to a number of different bands, a few of which are on the list for me to explore. A standout here was “Reverent of Rats” covered by Mystic Prophecy.

The third and final disc is orchestral versions of most of the album. They don’t feature the vocals from the songs, but they pack so much power. There is something about a full orchestra that is an special to listen too. Sabaton, another band I want to cover, have done this as well and I hope to see more of it.

Birds of a feather

As an aside I have found that several bands I have enjoyed on the journey are all affiliated with the same label, Napalm Records (again another amazing name). Their artists list is starting to become a to do list for me.

I would love to see these guys perform live and I hope to eventually get my hands on the 3 disc limited vinyl edition of their latest album. I look forward to seeing what they release next.