Ever since the early 20’s Finnish one-man band Wolftower have been firing away one release after the other, yet none of them ever featured on these pages. Strange if you think about it, we do have our common knack for Finnish Black Metal yet it took until this eleventh release to finally spend some words on Wolftower. Although I heard some of the earlier recordings, I just never got around to actually review anything for our pages. But while I was spinning this cassette tape, I thought it was about time to change that.
While Wolftower used the first years of its career (2015-2021) to perfect its musical formula without releasing anything, it now seems more active than ever. We are assumed to be able to keep up with the heavy pace of releasing, but while we hardly get any space to breathe, the music on offer is of a more than decent quality. The atmospheric yet raw Black Metal fits in both the Finnish tradition and within the bands that share the same vampiric themes. The songs all evolve around some moody keyboards and mournful repeating riffs, where for the latter, it is notable that Vyrtur, the man behind the band, is not only a creative mind, but also not an ungifted musician. Effortlessly it weaves all elements of standard Raw/Atmospheric Black Metal together with Dungeon Synth/Ambient soundscapes into a musical picture that offers a perfect soundtrack to the vampiric subject that this band evolves around. Definitely fodder for those who like to wrap their ears around classic and authentic sounding, late 90’s Black Metal in the style of what might be the mid-point between Gehenna and Satanic Warmaster.
