Wolfbrigade - Damned

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Damned is already being celebrated in some circles as one of the crust albums of the year – which is certainly fair enough if you want your crust-punk exactly as you expect it. To be fair, for many that may just be the case, and nobody could say that Wolfbrigade don't deliver. Damned has a near perfect production; grizzly, dirty guitars grinding along to d-beat drum beats for the entire length of the album. The songs are angry and headstrong, but still within the safe and predictable boundaries of the genre. The songs are to an extent interchangeable – like Motörhead, an obvious influence to any straight-forward crust band, one does eventually get the feeling that as long as the band are sticking to what their fans want, their songs will end up sounding exactly the same. That's not a bad thing per se – Damned is a solid album, but unfortunately it does feel a bit safe and easy. Given that a lot of interest in crust recently has come from the black metal scene (which produces unpredictable and exciting music all the time), and given the original spirit of punk rock should never feel like it is just doing what is expected, one feels that maybe Wolfbrigade should be doing more than making predictable crust.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2012, Albums, Punk, Quick.Play Reviews, Wolfbrigade