DUNGEON WOLF – Slavery or Steel Review

DUNGEON WOLF – Slavery or Steel

Independent

Facebook

I think that we have to make some points about the social background of heavy metal music in order to understand what DUNGEON WOLF are doing here with their debut album. You see metal music was born in the town of Birmingham, United Kingdom. This was a town that in 20^th century had many industries and of course it was a town full of workers. It is from that working class that metal started and it was the music which helped the youth back then to express their objection to the oppression they felt or even provoke the structures of the preservative society. Also it worked as a way to escape from reality. I think all these are elements that I personally miss from the heavy metal music which was actually turned into heavy metal music industry and cares mostly about the sales and always tries to be politically correct in order to do so. Thank god, however, the underground has always been the core that kept this music alive even in the most difficult times. DUNGEON WOLF as their name suggests are a child of this underground heavy metal movement.

DUNGEON WOLF are no other than the successor of the band NORSELAW that if you check my webzine on a regular basis already know play traditional heavy metal with a lot of epic elements in their own style. The band comes from the U.S.A. and this is a country that gave birth to many unique bands like CIRITH UNGOL and MANILLA ROAD. Bands that took the traditional metal sound and transformed it into their personal style. And that’s exactly what DUNGEON WOLF do; they use their metal and 70’s hard rock influences and create an album that is unique and true to the core. Actually this doesn’t seem strange to me because the band is the continuation of NORSELAW though here the compositions are more mature and the exaggerations on displaying guitar skills more functional to the structure of the songs. Apart from the above mentioned bands I think that I can only compare DUNGEON WOLF with such bands like CAULDRON BORN, DAWNBRINGER and SKULLVIEW.

All in all releases like this one are the answer to those who believe that true metal has nothing new to offer to its audience. Yes it still does and DUNGEON WOLF are here to prove it.

Nick “Verkaim” Parastatidis