Over the top gimmicks have been helping otherwise average bands make names for themselves since times unknown. Rarely do they backfire, but with Powerwolf I just don’t know. The music on this album is incredibly good. Having never heard them before, I thought maybe they just drew a lyrical blank, sort of burning out on their gimmick while still steamrolling as musicians. But apparently, from what I’ve read at least, all four of their albums are pretty much identical thematically.

Sanctified with Dynamite

That is pretty strange considering Blood of the Saints is itself so thematically narrow that I get the feeling half of the songs use the exact same lyrics. I mean, I criticized Alestorm this year for pushing the line “get drunk or die” a bit farther than necessary at the expense of more clever lyrics, but compared to this album Back Through Time is pure poetry.

Each track pretty much consists of five lines: the name of the song, something about dying, something about wolves, something about blood, and the word “hallelujah”. That makes the opening track, Sanctified with Dynamite, the most lyrically diverse song on the album, because it is the only track that does not mention blood, wolves, or dying in the title.

They wrote a song called “We Drink Your Blood” and a song called “All We Need is Blood” and put them on the same album. Really? You would think the conceptual powers of an angry eight year old would translate to the music itself.

We Drink Your Blood

But in fact, this album is undeniably great. Their sound is powerful and enormous. The operatic vocals, the sinister organ, the production as a whole, everything just surrounds you and kicks your ass. The heavy metal choruses are always catchy in spite of the far too discernible lyrics. Every track is memorable. Musically, there’s just no getting around the quality of this album.

Why couldn’t they be singing in German or Romanian, their two native languages? Why couldn’t I enjoy this in blissful ignorance and not have to endure some of the lamest lyrics ever written? Oh dear…

Night of the Werewolves

If We Drink Your Blood sounds like a heavy metal version of Lordi, Night of the Werewolves has an almost Iron Maiden feel to it. The album is consistently comparable to my favorites among power-infused heavy metal bands, and they add a unique operatic element to the mix. It’s just that their comedy routine is something more on par with a Meet the Spartans. Blood of the Saints is definitely good enough for me to get over that and still enjoy it. Their lyrics aren’t annoying really, because the vocals are so good. It’s just disappointing that they couldn’t cultivate their gimmick into something actually entertaining. Blood of the Saints could have been a lot better than it actually is with relatively little additional effort on the band’s part. But so what, I guess, because I’m not going to stop listening to this one for a long time.