Review WOLFBRIGADE “Howl From Underground”

Rooted in Swedish D-beat crust and increasingly loaded with metallic muscle, Wolfbrigade from Mariestad have spent more than three decades blurring the line between punk and metal. Formed in 1995, the band quickly set out to record its debut, which arrived in 1996. After numerous releases over the following 30 years, Howl From Underground makes one thing clear: Wolfbrigade have lost none of their appetite for musical aggression.

The song lengths alone tell you that this is not an album built around elaborate layers or extended detours. Wolfbrigade go straight forward. The opener, “Caveman Motherfuck,” needs barely two and a half minutes to lay out exactly what this band is about. Sheer brute force comes crashing through the speakers, setting the tone for everything that follows.

At the center of it all are frontman Mikael Dahl’s barked and screamed vocals, which add a considerable amount of weight to the already punishing sound. At the same time, some tracks bring in more melodic guitar lines that make the record a little easier to grab onto. “Cold War Bootlicker” is a good example, while “Born to Rot” takes an interesting turn. Every time I hear this song, I inevitably think of Motörhead. Wolfbrigade push the aggression a little further than Lemmy and company usually did, but there is a similar raw, forward-driving vibe running through it.

The band’s roots come into sharper focus on tracks such as “Fat Man Hellscape,” which does not even crack the two-minute mark. Wherever the needle happens to be on either side of the record, what comes blasting out is an untamed collision of crust, punk, and metal. These songs hit like a sonic wrecking ball swinging at full speed.

With the relentless “Cosmic Meatgrinder,” the album enters its final third without giving up any of the momentum established earlier. Furious guitars and Dahl’s ragged screams power tracks like “Man Is Wolf to Man,” bringing out the full force packed into these compact assaults. Then comes “Tangled Steel Mask,” providing the album with its closest thing to an epic moment. It actually stretches beyond the three-minute mark and closes the record with a final burst of speed and muscle.

More than 30 years into their career, Wolfbrigade prove that they still belong among the established forces of the crust scene. Howl From Underground is blunt, relentless, and surprisingly infectious. This is a musical roller coaster with no brakes—and Wolfbrigade clearly have no intention of reaching for them.