Band:	Wolf
Album:	Ravenous
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	February 20, 2009
Guest review by:	Doc G.

01. Speed On
02. Curse You Salem
03. Voodoo
04. Hail Caesar
05. Ravenous
06. Mr. Twisted
07. Love At First Bite
08. Secrets We Keep
09. Whisky Psycho Hellions
10. Hiding In Shadows
11. Blood Angel
12. Steps [Japanese bonus]

It seems there's three ways of earning a name in metal these days; go with a gimmicky "theme" or image, add in extravagant use of folk instruments (or synthesize them), or be completely derivative. It seems there's very few bands around these days that can rely purely off of great riff-work and some memorable chorus' to follow, Wolf manage to attempt this with very satisfying results.

Honestly, on first listen Wolf may seem quite derivative, obvious comparisons will be drawn between them and the likes of Judas Priest & Iron Maiden. This may have been true about their previous albums, but with Ravenous they manage to diversify themselves, while still keeping one foot planted in an obvious appreciation for the classics. As with most decent straight-forward heavy metal bands, its all about the riffs - powerful, solid, delicious riffs. In Ravenous, the band does not simply take the easy route on writing the fastest heavy metal tracks possible, but rather they write powerful, catchy heavy metal in some slower-tempo tracks like "Voodoo" and "Secrets We Keep" along with the usual face-melting speed songs. Not only do they diversify in tempos, but the song structures themselves seem a little more thought-out than your typical "intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus" song structure - making the first few listens interestingly unpredictable while still being catchy.

The bands improvements have not unfortunately brought them anywhere near "masterpiece" level. As much as Wolf diversify themselves with this album, there are the few songs - as good as they are - that just sound a little too close to their idols to truly lose that whole "These guys are new but they sound like an 80's band" stigma. There are a small handful of tracks that would not sound at all out of place on Painkiller. The Judas Priest & Iron Maiden worship isn't too much of a problem next to the fact that the album does have its fair share of filler tracks. Unfortunately Ravenous just isn't consistent enough to keep pulling me back in to listen to the entire thing over and over, but rather only a few select songs.