Grand Magus Make a Grand Return
'Wolf's Return' is the 3rd album from Swedish metallers, Grand Magus. While their first two releases were more Doom influenced, the opening track shows that they are not going to be offering retreads of the first two albums.
Opening with the storming 'Kingslayer', the tone for the album is set and this looks to be a fist-pumping journey. Lead singer, JB's vocals are powerful and heroic and the music is just purely traditional metal! Sure, the opening track may be the best track on the album but that does not mean that the other tracks aren't good. Tracks like 'Nine' and 'Blood Oath' make you ask the question, why don't more bands like this play at festivals? It's just simple, fun, beer drinking metal.
Something that may strike you as odd is the band's need to include four instrumentals on the album for some reason or another, all of which are pretty pointless except a nice little doom track called 'Hamnd' which is worth a listen. However, the main stand out tracks on this album are 'Kingslayer', 'Wolf's Return' and 'Repay in Kind'.
Grand Magus are one of those bands that all true metallers will like because they have everything a metalhead could want; heaviness, music to drink to, a main sing a long anthem…The list goes on.
'Wolf's Return' is a fairly good album and I would probably say that it is better than the previous effort, 'Monument', although they have changed their style slightly, while maintaining the Doom elements, whilst adding a more traditional, Iron Maiden feel to the album.
Although this is a generally good album and this is a good band but they could be a lot more creative- their singer is a member of Spiritual Beggars for god sake! But why moan about it not being creative anyway because 70% of modern metal isn't! Apart that, it's a good solid album with some memorable tracks and well worth your money if you like European metal in general. Trust me, I am sure you won't be disappointed.
A good, listenable album from the Swedish Doom/Tradition outfit. This band will not be unknown for much longer, they have potential to become reasonably big...