Review: Wolfbrigade ‘Life Knife Death’
Wolfbrigade, the long-time, Swedish flag-bearers for pummeling buzzsaw, d-beat and hardcore for almost three decades return with Life Knife Death, their first since 2019’s The Enemy: Reality, and their first for iconic, underground metal label Metal Blade Records.
As we’ve come to expect from these trailblazers, they remain plenty pissed off, and, as usual, channel their feelings with the state of the world into some of the nastiest filth one can find.
Combining elements of Discharge, Motörhead and Entombed, the band present a particularly aggressive battering take on Swedish, metal-tinged hardcore, that’s all at once unique to them, yet totally familiar sounding. The band, Micke Dahl on vocals, Jocke Rydbjer and Erik Norberg on guitars, Johan Erkenvåg on bass and Tommy Storback on drums, certainly haven’t lost any of their collective fire and rage, amazing for a band pushing three decades, but it goes without saying that the current state of the world has given them plenty of inspiration for Life Knife Death.
The band, not surprisingly, comes out instantly blazing with Ways To Die, a pounding, thrashed-out, Entombed rager featuring the trademark Swedish, buzzsaw guitar sound, Wolfbrigade’s well known-d-beat hammering and plenty of aggression. It’s immediately followed by full-on ripper Disarm Or Be Destroyed which actually, to my ears, has some hints of vintage At The Gates with some quasi-melodic lead work, accentuating the aural brutality.
Next we have the pissed-off, mid-tempo chug of the title track Life Knife Death, wherein Dahl sounds particularly vicious throughout the proceedings. Showing a nice ear for sequencing, the band tear back with the awesomely titled A Day In The Life Of An Arse, another riffy, face-ripper that again features just enough melody with some tasteful lead flourishes that they are able to strike a nice balance within their raging musical chaos.
Not surprisingly, Life Knife Death is another killer, ripping, clinic in Swedish crust, d-beat and metallic hardcore…
Meanwhile, throughout Unruled And Unarmed, Storback shows exactly why he’s one of the best in the business when it comes to this charging, d-beat and crust punk style of hardcore, while the melodic, rock and roll wallop of Skinchanger is also sequenced well, serving as a nice change of pace, before the scorching, hardcore thrash of Your God Is A Corpse, one of my favorites on the album which completely cleans the listener’s proverbial clock with its insane guitar tones and d-beat bashing.
Nail Bomb, another favorite, is a killer, mid-tempo stomper, while Cyanide Messiah is a clinic in buzzsaw, d-beat hardcore. Mayhem Mongrel is a rolling, riffing, angry, mid-tempo rager that sets up one more riffed-up hardcore blast, in the about-to-go-off-the-rails insanity of Sea Of Rust, before the album closes with the eerie mind warp of Age Of Skull Fuckery which boasts not one, but two of American lunatic cultist Jim Jones more famous quotes including his hair-raising ‘I will fight’ screed.
Not surprisingly, Life Knife Death is another killer, ripping, clinic in Swedish crust, d-beat and metallic hardcore. They once again check all the boxes as any fan of these legends should know more or less what to expect. As always, the guitar tones of Rydbjer and Norberg are some of the very nastiest in the business, it almost goes without saying that nobody does the buzzsaw guitar sound like the Swedes, appropriate, since they invented it.
For this reviewer, I put Wolfbrigade right up there with some of my favorite Swedish metal bands like Entombed, At The Gates, and The Crown, as, I’m stating the obvious here, all these bands share some of the same sonic DNA. Wolfbrigade, yet again, delivers a wicked, unstoppable platter of raging, metallic d-beat, crust, punk and hardcore that will sonically cure what ails you, while making you want to angrily run through a wall, all with a smile on your face.
Label: Metal Blade Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Martin Williams
