Wolf took the Swedish heavy metal underground by storm with their amazing self-titled debut, the more than decent follow-up that was Black Wings, Evil Star, and what is their absolute best release to date, The Black Flame. Now, three years after their definite highlight, Wolf returns with their fifth full-length Ravenous which includes both a new drummer and a new bassist. Luckily, this hasn’t changed Wolf one bit, and heavy metal of the old school is still on the agenda even though this slightly fails on continuing the success from their last release. For those of you not familiar with these likeable Swedes, modern day heavy metal acts like the American Icarus Witch and their neighbors to the west in Finland Machine Men as well as heavy metal pioneers Saxon could easily be mentioned in the same sentence as these guys. Throw in a solid dash of Whitesnake and Riot-like riffs, and vocals that shamelessly calls upon a certain King Diamond as well as Rob Halford, and there’s Wolf for you. Sounds pretty tempting don’t it?

Well, despite the fact that Wolf has managed to create another ass-whopping release, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed in this. This is a compilation of some killer songs that is up there among the best this band has created mixed with some rather forgettable tunes that’ll fit nicely in the filler-section of this album. Songs like the uninspired Voodo, boring finisher Blood Angel and the slow and forgettable Secrets We Keep would be best left behind, and doesn’t bring much more than extra minutes, while songs that are stuck between mediocre and good like the catchy Curse You Salem and the slow and groovy Love at First Bite doesn’t really bring anything new to the table except for some good fun moments. However, if you are able to look past these somewhat disappointing spots, there are songs here that will come out to grab you by the throat at the very instant and shred you to pieces with extraordinary riffing, high-pitched vocal assaults and speedy beats. The very first song of the album, Speed On does nothing but the above, and it’s such a damn shame that most of the other songs doesn’t deliver in the same manner as this one and a couple of others. The riffs are driving the songs forward into battle, while Niklas Staalvind’s vocals command the forces on the field. Hail Caesar is another standout track that really gives a needed boost to an album that tends to get fairly uninteresting in places.

What is really annoying about this is that the killer songs are coming every other time you press the skip button, which really tells you what the level of consistency is on here. It gets really frustrating, and takes away a whole lot of the joy of the standout tracks, and as much as Whiskey Psycho Hellion, the best song on the album, should make up for it, it just doesn’t. The album is as inconsistent as Lars Ulrich’s drumming, which should say a lot. Even though this is admittedly a very good album, all the filler material here ruins the experience. Make this album three or four songs shorter and there you have an outstanding release. I guess the bottom line is that this is very inconsistent yet still very good fun if you’re patient enough. As I said earlier, this contains some of the best material they have ever created as well as some of the most uninspired and boring cuts I have heard in a good while.