WOLFPAKK – Wolves Reign

Collaborative albums are always an adventure, especially in Metal where one musician’s or vocalist’s style can be so immediately recognizable and dominant that it can pull the listener out of the context of the album (think Probot). On the other end of the spectrum, there are the collaborations that can feature a panoply of guest stars that somehow blend together into a unified whole such as on the fourth Wolfpakk project Wolves Reign. Mark Sweeney and Michael Voss have done another commendable job in bringing together top shelf Metal masters to make an enjoyable record where the individual styles are recognizable but don’t take listeners out of the core concept of, well, wolf songs.

There are twenty-three “guest wolves” on the project; part of the fun in listening is identifying who plays and sings on which song. The songwriting and arrangements are tight, and the vocal performances uniformly excellent, but perhaps the most thrilling parts of Wolves Reign are in the guitar solos. For the most part they appear in fairly traditional fashion, after the second to last chorus in the back third of the songs, but sometimes throwing it down old school provides the best form of education. Partly, it is this adherence to tradition that makes Wolves Reign so fun to listen to, as it is both an exploration of familiar forms, but by using new combinations to create them.

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