Lonewolf - The Heathen Dawn

I remember listening to these Frenchies debut some fifteen years ago and being probably impressed by their “Running Wild” inspired metal that in the “raw” excitement, sounded rather good… in the years that followed I sort of lost them and for the purposes of these review I decided to brush off their “in-between” releases so to update myself with their history.
 
“The Heather Dawn” is their eighth album and despite only having Jens Borner as their sole remaining member these days, their style has hardly really changed… he does sound a little more hoarse nowadays, which I suppose gives the songs a bit of a Grave Digger slant as well, but the riffing is very much constant and fierce, just as capt Rolf used to do it, all those years ago. In fact there are a lot of nice riff based melodies and the occasional lead that might not be terribly “sophisticated” but work well in the context of the very basic and in your face metal of the band. The cleaner production is not bad, but I do think that a little more “chaos” and treble and not so much “rounded” drums for instance would have aided the immersion a little further.
 
Then again, it’s not as terrible as Omen’s “Hammer Damage” is… “Wolfsblut”, “Demon’s Fire” and “Rise to Victory” are some pretty respectable cuts and while you’ll not be that impressed by the band’s plethora of ideas, they do what they set out to do pretty well and the fact that they’re still at it so many years after they started, it is vindication for their efforts and an indication of where their heart’s at… in the right place…I dunno I feel I have to say something epic like “up the hammers” and “down the nails” – (is it a construction song?!) lol…