Artist: White Wolf
Label: Escape Music
Released: 2007
White Wolf are a Canadian hard rock band who, after two excellent albums, “Standing Alone” (1984) and “Endangered Species” (1986), never quite broke through to the top. They had incredible musical potential, selling 250,000 copies of their first album worldwide, but then time ran them over, pushing other trends to the front, and the one-of-a-kind mutant white wolf just couldn’t adapt anymore. So we had to wait a full 20 years for the guys to get back together and decide to put out their third album.
Fellow Canadians Triumph and the Yanks in Y & T! You can hear that North American riff-driven “feel” in White Wolf too – in other words, punchy, riff-oriented classic hard rock. But since White Wolf also brushed up against the Judas Priest charge, with the riff extravagance of the first half of the eighties records, softened with a tasteful dash of melodic flirting like the British AOR champs Magnum, White Wolf worked as a kind of bridge between the old school of the seventies (Rainbow) and the boom of lipstick and hair glam rock in the second half of the eighties. They were too old to be thrown in the same bin as classic Rainbow, and at the same time too young for the demonic, seductive notoriety of Motley Crue. An overlooked dead-end branch of rock music. But no less interesting for its mix, which White Wolf really showed off on “Endangered Species” (1986), with a polished, glossy production that delivered a top-notch, modern hard rock sound for the time.
And “Victim Of The Spotlight” – this long-awaited comeback? Something similar happened four years ago with the British band Saracen, who, after lying in the graveyard since 1981, came back to life in 2003 with their second album “Red Sky” (RockLine review HERE). Well, compared to Saracen, White Wolf sadly don’t have such an original musical identity…
The lineup has gone through changes. The most important one is on one of the two guitar spots. Alongside original member Cam McLeoud is the Swede Martin Kronlund, who has a perfect feel for the band. The guy proved it with an excellent production job on the new album, which has an incredible, classic-leaning, live hard rock sound. The production in particular is why today’s White Wolf sound “Rainbow-ish” — a revival of the sound of seventies Rainbow. Especially thanks to some chosen melodic harmonies where the two guitarists weave in and out of each other, backed by the classic sound of organs. Singer Don Wolf, meanwhile, at moments pulls off melody lines that are remarkably reminiscent of Ronnie James Dio, and for the spot-on throatiness and raspiness of his voice, some of you might also be reminded of Graham Bonnet, while in the higher screams he’s comparable to Ian Gillan, in his better days of course. The guys made great use of the middle instrumental interludes to liven up the songs, picking compatible melodies carefully and just pouring oil on the fire to build drama inside the songs (guitar solos, transitional flourishes), while the choruses are masterfully seasoned with multi-part vocal harmonies, which shows a lot of know-how with tricks drawn from mastery of the classic hard rock school, keeping the dramatic atmosphere at a high point throughout the songs, and that goes for the great “flow” of the album too and so a guaranteed high level of friendliness to ears and drums alike!
You were probably afraid that not much of eighties White Wolf was left. Not true! The opening title track picks up exactly where the closing track of “Endangered Species”, called Snake Charmer, left off. In their new production shoes and thus an extremely detailed, finely finished sonic makeover, White Wolf sound incredibly alive in the studio, and, as I said, they breathe in Rainbow style on that front. The guys have kept the epic bombast of all the songs and have fully matured on the production side. The tragedy in songs like The Wolf, with the Arabic melos of its lead motif, or the renewed flirtation with AOR in America (Hello Again), Dreams Are Forever, One More Lie, or the most “Magnum-esque” Don’t Turn Away, and also Hard Cold Stone, which, going by its glam rock moves, would have fit into the follow-up to Endangered Species had it come out in the eighties, is effectively gripping all the way through. Even more than for its remarkably fresh variety of ideas, the new album appeals for its quality, consistent evenness across all 12 new songs. So there are no filler tracks on this album! A real gem that shakes hands on one side with the classic Y&T riff (you can’t miss the whiff of Hendrix) and on the other with the epic “Magnum-style” chorus, and honestly the most directly successful characterization of the whole point of White Wolf, is the album’s song Price Of One.
That way, with just their third album in the band’s 27 years of existence (they started out in 1980 as a cover band), White Wolf have successfully returned to the scene. They’ve put out an excellent comeback album, and the lessons of it will delight all true fans of the traditional hard rock school who identified with the analysis of “Victim Of The Spotlight” in the paragraphs above.
Lineup
Don Wolf – vocals
Cam Macleod – guitar, backing vocals
Martin Kronlund – guitar
Rikard Quist – bass, keyboards
Imre Daun – drums
Production
Martin Kronlund
Tracklist
1. Victim of the Spotlight
2. The Wolf
3. America (Hello again)
4. The Eyes Of The World
5. One More Lie
6. Hard Cold Stone
7. Price Of One
8. Dreams Are Forever
9. Nightmares
10. Hold On (Getting Tighter)
11. Don’t Turn Away
12. Out Of Control
Album length: 53.19
