Review: Wolfnaut ‘Return Of The Asteroid’
For more years than I can count now, Ripple Music has proven to be the standard bearer for the stoner rock scene, releasing countless quality album after album with a keen eye for talent that rarely misses the mark. This year is proving to be no different and 2023 has already seen a slew of the label’s artists firing on all cylinders and issuing forth some of their finest work to date, like Tidal Wave and Morass Of Molasses to name but two.
Continuing this momentum new additions to the roster Wolfnaut, the Norwegian three-piece formerly known as Wolfgang, look to announce their arrival with their fourth full-length album, the hook-laden, nine-track Return Of The Asteroid.
Having been around long enough to celebrate 25 years of existence, the band from Elverum have built on a solid reputation of energetic and hard-hitting live shows to back up their Cactus Mountains debut in 1998 before reforming themselves as a trio and hitting their stride with Castle In The Woods (2016) and III, which fellow Shaman scribe Martin sang the praises of in 2022.
With barely a pause for breath it seems, the band have returned a little over a year later with their latest album looking to stamp their mark on the scene with their most definitive statement yet. Beginning with the gentle, soulful guitar strains of Brother Of The Badlands, Wolfnaut take approximately twenty seconds before they put their foot to the pedal and take off on this riff-filled journey with a stomping refrain and rich groove.
As ever the velvet throat of vocalist and guitarist Kjetil Sæter pulls you into the narrative, soaring, searching and questioning in his powerful clean timbre. The lush tones of the music still retain the familiar ringing fuzz but has a classic, traditional rock sound as he slides effortlessly up and down the fretboard between chords.
Underpinned by the rhythmic thump of Ronny Kristiansen on drums and the resonant pulse of Tor Erik Hagen on bass, the main thrust of the band is muscular, dramatic and catchy as hell, packed through with melody and sophisticated songwriting nuances.
My Orbit Is Mine continues this theme as it showcases the band’s ability to channel a funky, chunky chug and tell a story that is never far from a deft singable refrain. Complete with a mesmerising solo, this track is an early highlight that will have you nodding your head and joining in the chorus with unabashed joy.
The piano introduction to The Mighty Pawns heralds a switch to a darker and moodier, seventies-flavoured doom feel. Awash with psychedelic-tinged synth and additional percussion, the track is more pensive than the previous two as it embraces the heavier direction. Just as you think you have been sucked into the downbeat feel, the band discover another more urgent gear and go for the jugular in the second half.
This album is an absolute blast…
The not-quite-title track of Crash Yer Asteroid picks up this atmosphere and brings a more driving, punky attack to keep the momentum of the album, clipping by at a pace that means it never drags and is once again layered with a gritty edge and breakout memorable moments.
Arrows previously appeared on their sophomore release as a hard rock number, but here is stripped down to a pensive ballad that the band rightly felt was a better approach for the melancholy subject matter. The tracks serves as a nice moment for the listener to catch their breath before the band canter off again with the up-tempo blues rock of G.T.R. with its squalling guitar lead and sleaze rock dalliances that give way to yet another huge chorus.
The last three tracks on Return Of The Asteroid see the band continuing to flex their refusal to stand still stylistically. They range from the smash-and-grab bombast of the shortest of the trio, Something More Than Night, through to the lurching sardonic shuffle of Crates Of Doom with itsself-effacing lyrics; ‘My demons are plenty, they ship in crates, all shapes and colours in a fragile state’, to the epic length closer of Wolfnaut’s Lament.
Here the band show their ability to blend light and shade, trading blows between the Grand Magus-esque hard rock pomp and circumstance of the earlier songs with more expansive ambitions that stretch the run time. In this final entry, they create a smokey, haze-filled, psych-laced trip that builds from the upbeat stomp to the more cynical and introspective. As Wolfnaut move through the floating, wistful opening into a more robust cautionary tale you can feel the catharsis when they charge into one last stab at that Sabbath-like Hole In The Sky type punch.
Produced by the band themselves with mixing and mastering given the seal of approval by none other than fellow Swede and stoner rock royalty, Karl Daniel Lidén (Dozer, Greenleaf), Return Of The Asteroid sounds fresh and vibrant from start to finish.
I was expecting a decent release from Wolfnaut having been aware of them for a while and was reassured by their signing to Ripple Music, but I genuinely didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did. There’s a lot of great music coming out of the scene at the moment, but few capture a gleeful joy that seems to emanate on this album and in turn inspire that in the listener. This album is an absolute blast.
Label: Ripple Music
Band Links: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
Scribed by: Mark Hunt-Bryden
