Review & Track Premiere: Sleepwulf, Sleepwulf
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on February 13th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to hear the premiere of ‘Wizard Slayer’ from Sleepwulf’s self-titled debut, out digitally March 6 with LP preorders up the same day.]
Traditionalist heavy rock has itself become a generation-spanning tradition, most especially in Sweden, where more than 20 years ago, early purveyors of hyper-stylized heavy ’70s analog-worshipers began to coalesce an aesthetic that continues to resonate with bands domestic and international. Though many of the microgenre’s once-lead advocates in acts like Witchcraft and Graveyard and last-decade comers like Blues Pills and Kadavar have moved on to more modern sounds in their particular approaches, there have been plenty of others to pick up the slack in bands like Dunbarrow, Demon Head, MaidaVale or any number of Sverige boogie acts. Newcomers Sleepwulf take a doomier approach to vintage vibes on their self-titled Cursed Tongue Records debut long-player.
Having signed to the label following two well-received singles spread widely through social media word of mouth, the Kristianstad four-piece of vocalist Owen Robertson, guitarist Sebastian Ihme, bassist Viktor Sjöström and drummer Carl Lindberg present nine tracks and 36 minutes of proto-doomed songcraft, willfully familiar as it should be but marked out nonetheless by warmth of tone, catchiness of the songwriting and the band’s clear ability to affect a mindset in their listener. Sleepwulf, which includes the two singles “Lucifer’s Light” and “Misty Mountain” on sides A and B, respectively, is a beginning point of what one hopes will be a longer-term progression, but its fluidity speaks to the band’s commitment to what they’re doing in style as well as the substance of the tracks themselves.
They are not dabbling, not getting their feet wet. They’re schooled in the methods and the modes, and whether it’s the sweeping groove of closer “One Eyed Jailor” or the shuffling jive of pieces like “Beasts of Collision” and “Tumbling Towers,” Sleepwulf effectively convey the tenets of vintage heavy doom without losing sight of bringing something of themselves to the proceedings, whether that’s in Ihme‘s soloing style or the melodies of Robertson‘s vocals, Sjöström‘s bass tone or Lindberg‘s clever snare work.
These are, again, familiar elements, and the spectre that looms over much of Sleepwulf‘s Sleepwulf is that of Pentagram‘s First Days Here, their ultra-seminal collection of early and/or lost recordings which, compiled in 2004, helped ease the path to set a generation of retro heavy in motion. And the dictates of trend have perhaps left vintage doom behind over the last few years, but that suits a band like Sleepwulf just fine as they roll through the immediately nodding riff of “Wizard Slayer” at the outset or tap Witchcraft‘s “Her Sisters They Were Weak”-riffing for their own finale.
The album as a whole is not necessarily slow in terms of pace, but seems to crawl just the same, or perhaps ooze as its tones unfurl themselves in the songs, and that makes its actually-downtempo stretches all the more effective. Cuts like presumed side A capper “Standing Stones” are spacious and emblematic of the patience that might emerge in Sleepwulf‘s sound over time, and even as it picks up pace to stand next to the likes of “Beasts of Collision,” there’s a sense of the return pending that does nothing to undercut appreciation for it when it arrives.
That’s a skill in itself — to telegraph a thing and then pull it off anyway — but it speaks to the quality of the turns Sleepwulf are able to make all throughout the tracks here. They didn’t give much indication of such proclivities in “Lucifer’s Light,” keeping largely to a bouncing rhythm for the abidingly-unpretentious three-minute single, but the more insistent feel that comes to a head in “Misty Mountain” offers some clue as to where they’re coming from overall, though the subsequent “Wicked Man” — the opening line, “You were born a wicked man,” immediately bringing to mind Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ “I’ll Cut You Down” — turns back to a more dead-ahead, hairy-toned style of riffing.
Rather, it’s in moments like the centerpiece interlude/side B opener “God of the Gaps” that Sleepwulf reinforce the atmosphere in which they’re working, and having done so, they’re all the more free to let loose a moment of boogie in “Tumbling Towers” as they do. You can have all the gear in the universe, record live to tape in a cave 5,000 meters below the surface of the earth with microphones made of mammoth bones or in the moldiest of decrepit low-ceiling basements, but the most necessary component to pull off a vintage approach is vibe, and that’s exactly what Sleepwulf have working most in their favor on their debut album.
Of course, the last remaining question about the band and their impressive debut is what will come next. There are a couple newer acts out there — the above-cited among them — who to one degree or another have carried across retro stylizations without losing their edge or creative progression, even if those who helped forge the path have largely let it languish. But it can be a tricky balance, and as ever, even more than the commitment to genre tenets, what’s going to help Sleepwulf most in the longer term is their songwriting, which is readily on display throughout these tracks, if in nascent form. The real trick will be to discover how Sleepwulf grow their doom over time. Will their sound expand to incorporate outside elements? What will that inherently do to the shuffle and roll that serves them so well here? Can they twist the tradition of traditionalism?
Naturally, it’s hard to even guess at this point, but even the simple curiosity should speak to the quality of the work Sleepwulf are doing and the fact that their project, whatever it ends up being, is worth pursuing, wherever it might lead. For what it’s worth, if one reads into the self-titled the idea that the prior singles were written earlier, then some of the material that surrounds, particularly in the longer side-ending tracks, does find a way to balance sonic complexity without giving up the basic sonic foundation underscoring the record as a whole. It’s another angle at which Sleepwulf‘s potential can be seen, but really, through any you might view, the picture is the same.
