aaamusic | On 18, Dec 2011

Wolfsbane. If there was ever a band name that signals “Here there be riffs (and no-one under the age of forty)!” then that’s it. It gets even worse when one realises that this is Blaze Bayley’s band. As in, the Blaze Bayley who made Iron Maiden shit and was last seen in adverts for male pattern baldness cures. This, it stands to say, should be interesting. Interesting in the “There’s something growing where there shouldn’t be” sense, if anything else.

 

Chances are, if you know anything about the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, you know what this sounds like, as it’s basically that but with added midlife crisis. No-one ever needs to hear the sound of a forty eight year old man rhapsodise about BDSM in the least subtle way possible in the depressing Teacher, before turning the self pity all the way up to eleven on Buy My Pain. Musically, it’s actually not that bad, Buy My Pain especially rattles along like sanitized Motorhead before crashing into sky-scraping harmonies in the half time chorus. And Starlight is carried on a pleasantly jangling riff. It’s nothing special, but it’s exciting in the way a happy meal is tasty. The real problem here, as with so many other bands, is the frontman. Blaze. Bayley. Cannot. Sing.  Oh yeah, he tries, he grunts, shrieks, wails, croons but it never, ever hits the mark, it’s like listening to Roger Daltrey’s recent vocals if Daltrey hadn’t traded in power for expressiveness. It’s actually quite sad to see someone so utterly blind to the fact that he’d be past his prime if there was ever a prime to speak of.  At least he has the savvy to sing “We were young / We were fast / It was never gonna Last” on Smoke and Red Light.

 

Basically, this album is a waste of your time. If you are a hardcore Wolfsbane fan, then listen to the last Iron Maiden album, or Wolfsbane’s self titled effort, don’t subject yourself to a sad old mans fictional tales of his sexual prowess, his bands awesomeness and how gosh-darn bad he feels sometimes. You, dear reader, have better things to do with your time. Everyone does.

 

Will Howard