Review
Two instincts run side by side on this record. One wants the sound of five players thrashing in a single room, with nothing added afterward. The other wants heft, a bass line pushed forward and guitars with more bite than before. Wolfbrigade hold both at once, and the friction keeps the twelve songs from reading as a formula. The vocals sit high and gravelly in the mix, closer than they have been on earlier albums.
The album is lean. Most of the songs run under three minutes, and the whole thing lasts about half an hour, so there is little room to settle in. The first real pause arrives with the martial intro to "Born to Rot." Melody surfaces only in small doses: a guitar figure that tugs against the d-beat on "Cold War Bootlicker," and a few hooky moments near the end of "Tangled Steel Mask." Without those, the band would sit on familiar ground. The strongest moments come where the tune and the battering meet.
