Hour of the Wolf

Album Review

New York-based stoner rock/metal bandmembers of the Resurrection Sorrow might be city boys, but they've got a sludgy, backwoods sound that strongly recalls Corrosion of Conformity (in their Southern rock style, not their early hardcore stuff), particularly Alex Dementia's vocals. The band's riffs are doomy, but always stay uptempo enough to keep heads banging rather than sending the listener into a funereal slump. Sometimes, they're downright thrashy, as on the fierce "Soul of the Soulless," and the instrumental "Shadow of the Vampire" is driven by a thundering drumbeat that keeps the sludge flowing like lava. For the most part, though, this is head-down hard rock meant to get listeners throwing their horns in the air. The music isn't overly retro, but it's not too modern, either; it's clearly the sound of four guys in a room banging it out organically, not locked into a Pro-Tools grid. The rhythm section is heavy but fluid, and the guitar work is aggressive without overplaying or leaping too far ahead of the drums. Everyone here is on the same page, committed to a bare-bones, classicist aesthetic that still has a lot of potency. The Resurrection Sorrow will doubtless find a home within the stoner rock scene, but they could just as easily play to old-school fans of Cactus, Humble Pie, Black Oak Arkansas, and other '70s heavy-boogie acts.