This Swedish Progressive Metal masters have been around since 1995. The new album, "Communication Lost", kept the regular musical style of the band that always reminded me a lot of the old and good QUEENSRYCHE and FATES WARNING. It was a very well built production that just made the songs sound more epic and built a really nice atmosphere.

Right from the opening track of "Downfall", WOLVERINE will took me on a journey that was full of progressive arrangements with very interesting melodies. There had been everything you would had hoped to hear on a good Progressive Metal album. On this album there is a touch of a much modern sound and modern style of guitar riffs. It was quite evident, among others, on the second song "Into The Great Nothing" that lyrically in my opinion, as the rest of the album, was simply amazing. I especially liked the drum grooves on this song, they were very percussive and not typical for a Metal song, but in the last few years this style of drumming has been approached by bands such as KAMELOT, ANDROMEDA and other European Progressive acts, I think it's because it just sets a really good vibe and that typical song was more fluent that way.

The band members were amazing in their performances. Mikael Zell's guitar work was great and the rhythm sections sounded tight and interesting. The keyboard work filled the tracks with atmospheric sounds that set the vibe of the songs while adding a really great feel. Of course Stefan Zell's voice, that is a kind of mix between Roy Khan, Geoff Tate and Ray Alder, but with his great delivery the songs sounded very powerful, interesting and fluent.

Production wise, the album was handled by rather good hands. In my opinion the guitars were a little too low and the mastering merely killed the dynamics a little as well. That was something that has been truly murderous to the sound of Progressive bands. In overall, it is a great album both Heavy Metal and Prog fans out there. This is a must.