Swedish melancholy rockers, Wolverine, last released an LP in 2016. That’s not unusual for a band that issued their debut in 2001. Former clients of Earache Records and Candlelight Records, their progressive rock sometimes operates in the pomp of traditional heavy metal, but calling their music “prog metal” is a stretch too far. Album number six is ten years in the making, out of tune with the times, and obsessed with the 1980s. Are you ready for an AOR affair?
Like all deceptive albums, this starts with promise. Listen how the bass and muscular guitar in ‘A Sudden Demise’ unite in a latent offbeat under the glory of an angelic keyboard choir. The contrast with the calm dynamics and melodious voice of Stefan Zell in the opening verse is confusing at first. This is a man who could grace any soft rock album from the 1990s, yet his voice has a vulnerability underneath the perfect tenor intonation. Why do the band stay in this blissful place for the next two minutes after treating us to such a tech metal extravaganza in the intro? Even the transition to the solo feels like it could be from a Michael Bolton album rather than a Dream Theater record. Yet there’s no denying the celestial brilliance of the keyboards.
Unfortunately, nothing comes close to matching the opening effort for the next forty-six minutes. “Weary from the road / A long and winding road / Only travel once ‘til every turn embedded in my mind / But now I’m blind,” cries Zell over a delicate fingering of the guitar arpeggios. Again, the tone is more middle-of-the-road than metal when the axeman hits the overdrive button. It’s a mystery why this group self-identify with Katatonia when the timbres of their music are so radiant. You’ll need patience in abundance to appreciate the minimalist electronic rock of ‘Circuits’. One cannot deny the gift this group have for creating atmosphere, but where is the vigour? This is as harmless as a late afternoon breeze.
It doesn’t improve from here. A-ha are the main influence on ‘Nightfall’ until the inevitable uplift to distortion in the chorus. The keyboards drown out the guitars at every turn. “Caught in between the light / I need refuge in the light,” laments Zell in full power metal grandiloquence. Using the synths like a Nokia TV advert in 2000 is not the best way to start ‘This World and All Its Dazzling Lights’. You can imagine Nordic people in a spotless white science lab, beguiled by test tubes. Musically, it goes nowhere for five minutes and twenty-five seconds and relies on Stefan Zell’s hand-on-heart posturing to retain your interest.
‘Automaton’ is their last chance to salvage something for the prog metal enthusiasts, but they disagree and strip everything back to piano and voice. Guitarist, Jonas Jonsson, might wonder why they needed him for much of this album. The clarity of voice is superb on this record, that we cannot deny. But the lyrics are often bland enough to be existential or meaningless depending on your mood. “Forged by the light / Tempered and aligned / Two failing lights, broken shards now perfect as one,” is another line that has an equal amount of emotion and ambiguous word association. Swedish pomp rockers, Europe, would be proud of the half-timing drum entrance at 02:49. It seems they remember their roots at the half-way point as Jonsson tries to work in a simmering palm-muted rotation, but this falls flat before the end.
Anomalies is not a metal album, but it might not even qualify as a rock album. To be fair, ‘Losing Game’ almost triumphs, but why must the listener wait until track eight for an agitated piece of rock theatre? The enjoyment levels are low enough at this point to appreciate the higher dynamics of what is quite a bland affair on second listen. “Nowhere to run anymore / Nowhere to hide from myself,” declares Wolverine’s singer. Are these lyrics just talking into a mirror for the entire record? Christ, this level of self-examination is tedious.
A glorious return this is not. The edgy Portishead elements from 2003’s Cold Light of Monday would be most welcome here, but Wolverine prefer the worst clichés of 1980s stadium rock instead.
Kirk Houghton
Verdict
Release Date: 06/02/2026
Record Label: Artone Label Group / Music Theories Recordings
Standout tracks: A Sudden Demise
Suggested Further Listening: Loch Vostok – Opus Ferox – The Great Escape (2021), Philosophobia – Philosophobia (2022), Vicinity – VIII (2024)