Wilczy pająk

It’s common knowledge that the two focal points of thrash metal in the mid 80s were to be found in America and Germany, with a smaller enclave existing in the UK that tended more towards the older sound of the NWOBHM than what became the Bay Area scene and the Teutonic scene. What are not generally as well known are a few outliers that hailed from different nations and offered their own unique take on the style. One such band was Poland’s Wolf Spider, though circa 1987 they were known by the same name as their debut album title “Wilczy Pająk” and penned their lyrics in the tongue of their motherland.

In stylistic terms, this album tends a bit closer to the NWOBHM tradition than what was emerging out of Germany and San Francisco at this time, but it actually ends up more along the lines of the punk infused New York style of the early to mid 80s, meshed with a little bit of early Metallica and Megadeth. The latter character of sound largely comes through in the pummeling guitar tone that hits like the drop of an anvil, yet is nimble enough to flow like the percussive sounds of a jackhammer, and also in the vocal character of Leszek Szpigiel, who sounds a lot like a “Ride The Lightning” incarnation of James Hetfield with an occasional hint of Rob Halford at a few key points (particularly the gut wrenching banshee wail after the intro to “Nocny Strach”).

The overall format on here is fairly complex, ranging from straight up (almost to the point of being crossover) speeders that clock in under 3 minutes to a handful of elongated epics that throw in a lot of Iron Maiden and Metal Church additives. “Mement Mori” seems to be all but preempting what would later happen on “…And Justice For All” with a similarly anthem-based intro, though the over-repetition is absent here and things quickly move from a slow pound to an up tempo crunch. Much of the rest of the album has a sort of crazed, up tempo feel reminiscent of the fury of Tankard’s “Zombie Attack”, with a similar element of celebratory air alongside the obligatory sense of horror and human depravity that was regularly commented upon in the newly socially aware tendencies of the genre.

It’s pretty difficult to go wrong with an album like this, apart from maybe the fact that the lyrics aren’t intelligible unless one is fluent in Polish, but you can get the general sense of what is going on in spite of this just from following how the music develops. This is far more consistent and exciting than anything that Metallica would put out post-“Ride The Lightning” and anyone who wished that they’d stuck to what they were good at instead of what eventually became their two later 80s efforts will find this a nice alternative to said experiments. Sure it may be a little bit derivative, but compared to a number of early 90s bands that were all but completely mirroring the Bay Area sound, it’s pretty fresh and exhilarating, even by the standards of the already established majesty of the 1985-86 explosion of the thrash movement, so drink, mosh, and be merry.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on May 10, 2012.