Rating: 2.0

Country: Finland

Release Date: 2002

Record Label: Total Consecration of the Ibex Throne Productions /Blackened Moon Productions

Track list:
1.   Veri Ja Viha   04:46   
2.   Our Great Revenge   04:05   
3.   Of Grand Desolation & Void   04:17   
4.   Mustan Auringon Kaste   03:46   
5.   Veri Juottaa Mustaa Maata   04:40   
6.   Wolves of War and Blood   02:52   
7.   Winds of Honour   03:38   
8.   Helwulf   00:13   
9.   Malja Kuolemalle   05:55   

Total playing time   34:12

Band Website: Helwulf

Helwulf - Wolves of War and Blood

D. Wulf - Guitar, bass
S. - Vocals, drums

Thousands of galaxies away, there is a small planet called Mediocatron 6 that's occupied by a species of hideous eyeless creatures who listen to nothing but the Dave Matthews Band. One day, after the human race finally cannibalizes itself to the point of extinction over religion and money, one of these creatures' errant starcrafts will find the charred satellite once called Earth, detect traces of past life, and explore it for artifacts of primitive human technology. One of the things they find will be Wolves of War & Blood. Two of the explorers will stare at it in awe with their eyeless skulls because I wrote myself into a corner, and amazed by their discovery, they will share a horrid, mechanical laugh. Once they bring it to their native planet of Mediocatron 6, the planet's most elite scientists will be assigned to decipher our archaic compact disc technology and translate the encoded data into sound. The new sounds they hear will inspire a renaissance. They will burn their mediocre legacy to the ground and face a new dawn of artistic liberty with pride. Thanks to this band, Mediocatron 6 will see an artistic & cultural revolution.

Unfortunately for Helwulf, Earth has better music than the Dave Matthews Band.

There are a couple riffs per song. Those riffs vacantly alternate between two modes: I-guess-that's-a-tremolo-riff buzz juxtaposed with clicky blastbeats, and uptempo groove bits that have sort of an Illdjarn-esque shit-forest-noise-punk appeal. Oh, and the title song is a 10 second grindcore number. How novel. There's some attempted diversity in the form of dodgy lead harmonies tacked on songs 8 and 11 (I'm pretty sure some of the songs have titles, but whatever), but they're merely paraphrases of the pertaining rhythm section. In short, instead of embracing their structural simplicity, Helwulf blackmail it by attempting to create the illusion of melodic development where there really isn't any. I'm not sure if there's a bass guitar. Maybe it's on vacation -- in a better album or something.

Over-processed and sterile, the production is even more impotent than the songwriting. It seems like Helwulf tried to capture the almost digitally chaotic guitar tone of Clandestine Blaze's Church of Atrocity, but they only managed to capture the digital part. Imagine some "ironic" joke band replaying old Darkthrone songs with Gameboy sound effects; the high strings are sort of like that.

I can't say I have any legitimate criticism regarding the album's vocals -- your typical black metal rasping -- but that's not to say they're good. Go ahead, try it. Make some rasping noises in the back of your throat like you're a dying giraffe. Congratulations, you're a black metal vocalist. Don't forget to credit yourself as something like "Vampyro von Holocaustpenis: intoxicating winds of Satanic atavism" in the liner notes of your first album and throw in some folky drunken viking chanting as some sort of ambiguous testament to your pagan ancestry and your refusal to conform to Judeo-Christian musical constructs like taking singing lessons. Bah. 

The first time I listened to this, I was so thoroughly underwhelmed that I immediately listened to it again thinking I missed something -- "is there a second layer of noise or something? Are the riffs really this boring, or does the shitty production just make them sound boring? Surely this can't be it." This is just tired. It's a tired effort that only exists to make a tired genre even more tired. I'm becoming tired just writing this. Don't be surprised if I fall asleep and have nightmares about Helwulf making me tired.

The only engaging part of this album is the wispy, droning coda in the last song. You may be thinking, "wait a minute, that's exactly what you said in your Malveillance review!" Curious, isn't it? I'm beginning to think that at least one Satanic spell works: cloning. If you've managed to read this far without accidentally drooling on yourself or stabbing yourself in the eye with a sippy-cup, you're too smart to enjoy this album.

March 7th, 2008