After suffering some technical setbacks in the process, recently On the Radar’ed UK duo Wolfshead have just today released a new single called “Sword of Fire,” and if you heard their prior self-titled outing when it was posted from their Bandcamp page, then you already know they set themselves up to cover a pretty wide swath of creative ground across those four tracks. “Sword of Fire” was recorded during the same session as the prior EP, so it’s not inappropriate to think of it as an extension of some of the same ideas.

And since the EP offered various sides of what will hopefully emerge over time as Wolfshead‘s own sonic personality, “Sword of Fire” follows suit, taking their self-proclaimed “garage doom” — they may or may not actually play or record in a garage; there’s very little of the lo-fi sensibility implied by using “garage” as a genre tag in their sound — to someplace altogether catchier. I don’t know what the situation was that led guitarist/vocalist Mart Anthony and bassist/drummer/vocalist Leigh McSharry to hold it back for single release, but it actually works really well on that level.

Particularly so because of its chorus, which is a hook punctuated by McSharry‘s steady snare. There isn’t much fancy about it —  basically it’s just a delivery of the title line — but it makes the track all the more memorable, and the fact that the Hampshire outfit kept it back from the initial EP speaks to a patience and awareness of their songwriting that has already served them well.

And in terms of building goodwill, there’s nothing quite like a free download to get the job done. Here’s “Sword of Fire,” courtesy of the band:

If you want to drop a line to Wolfshead to say thanks for giving their stuff away, feel free to hit them up on Thee Facebooks.

Tags: Doom, Sludge, UK, Unsigned bands, Wolfshead

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2012 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.