If you like your power metal sexy, your werewolves German, and your nuns covered in fur then today just might be your lucky day. Under the glow of the full moon, faces painted, and armed with another batch of songs about priests, angels and lustful desires, those lecherous lycanthropes Powerwolf have returned with Call of the Wild (Napalm Records), another batch of saucily sacrilicious earworms (wereworms?).

Opening in grand cinematic style, ‘Faster Than the Flame’ gets the ball rolling with reliably predictable bombast before the upbeat ‘Beast of Gévaudan’ arrives with exuberance and swagger. The darker ‘Dancing with the Dead’ and Russian influenced ‘Varcolac’ pack a dramatic punch while ‘Alive or Undead’ heads directly into power ballad territory.

 

Led by bagpipes, ‘Blood for Blood (Faoladh)’ is an uptempo foot-stomper about the legend of an Irish werewolf while the slow but powerful ‘Glaubenskraft’ is sung entirely in German. The title track and ‘Sermon of Swords’ are both suitably rousing affairs while the magnificently titled ‘Undress to Confess’ sounds every bit as lascivious as you imagine before the album closes with the thumping ‘Reverent of Rats’.

Containing no unwanted surprises, Call of the Wild is just everything you’ve come to expect from Powerwolf. Boasting an ungodly amount of massive choruses, a piledriving rhythm section and more atmospheric church organ from Christian “Falk Maria Schlegel” Jost than you can shake a priest at, Attila Dorn‘s muscular vocals soar but never eclipse, and guitarists Charles and Matthew Greywolf produce some of their best work to date.

It’s been three long years and a global pandemic since The Sacrament of Sin (Napalm) so if there was ever a time for some gloriously over the top hairy metal, then that moment is now. And Powerwolf are only too happy to deliver with fangs, fur, claws, clerical collars and wimples.

Buy the album here: https://powerwolf.napalmrecords.com

8 / 10

GARY ALCOCK