Since I came to know the French force of the Speed / Heavy Metal band LONEWOLF, in several points while listening to their songs it occurred to me that they are more than probably RUNNING WILD fans. It started by the chosen name for the band, which is a song from the superb "Blazon Stone" album and a personal cult track, and it continued with their music and the manners of RUNNING WILD's riffing style, harmonies, melodies, you name it. Furthermore, it seems that German Metal is strong within the hearts of this foursome crew, especially their longstanding leader, Jens Börner, as in their later material, along with their new album "Army Of The Damned" via Napalm Records, there has been other influences, though rather minimal, to IRON SAVIOR, GRAVE DIGGER and early HELLOWEEN. Generally, I didn't expect that for the new album LONEWOLF will change their ways in order to become a little bit more distinct than usual, but at least they provided a good release, even though a larger part of it sounded like numerous things of RUNNING WILD I have been listening throughout the years.

For one thing, and that is for the benefit of LONEWOLF, is that they are persistent and consistent in the music they have been composing for years. Though doing the RUNNING WILD thing in both music and somewhat in a close sound pattern, the end products have been quite good. When it came to "Army Of The Damned" I came across a several of anthem and epic oriented songs that can be considered as the crown jewels of nearly every highly celebrated German Metal album, like "Army of the Damned", "Celtic Heart", "Tally Ho" and "Cold"to the side of cracking Speed / Heavy Metal squads of fury that unleashed their mayhem in the classic way of course in the image of "One Second in Eternity", "Lonewolf", "Crawling to Hell" and "The Last Defenders". As for the riffing, it is exactly what I mentioned earlier, almost a total RUNNING WILD like assault with the fast paced trills. I was glad that the slow tempo stuff and the solos, which were great by the way, were more or less far from the latter's own doings, yet it showed me why it is so important when writing a song not to stand so close to your influence, it can be addictive just like alcohol. In the case of LONEWOLF, I think that it is a bit too late. Nonetheless, they can't be discouraged because the quality of their material still does justice.

LONEWOLF might not be the true picture of originality, yet they are veterans and their consistency on hanging on their prime influence brought them to achieve some good results. I would be interesting to be a witness to change in their approach one day. Yet, who knows if that will actually happen anytime soon. For now, we got ourselves cool German oriented Metal band.