Power Within

Hailing from Greece, Wolfcry are yet another band that can’t really decide if they want to be power metal or more straight-up traditional metal. Some bands can ride this middle ground to a very good, often fresh, sound. Others, like Wolfcry, struggle at times.

“Power Within” is their full-length debut after a couple of demos, and it has all the markings of such. The production, while far from the worst I’ve heard, could stand to be beefed up a bit, especially the guitars. Much too thin and scratchy a sound. The drums as well are too punchless, possessing the dreaded “tennis ball” double bass syndrome, while the bass seriously adds nothing at all to the overall sound, being so badly buried. But heck, it’s a low-budget debut so there’s little point in complaining too much.

All the guys playing instruments do fine here, despite the suspect sound quality. The guitar parts are kept simple enough, though there’s still a strong focus on melody throughout in addition to some weak Iced Earth-like palm muting sprinkled throughout. Drums are also par for the course – lots of double bass, time is kept adequately, and so on. Nothing to get too excited over, but also nothing to turn you off, either. There are some keyboards and, for the most part, I found them to be pretty generic.

The big problem here is the vocals, courtesy of one Costas Hatzigeorgiou. During the slow parts – check out the opening to “Lonewolf’s Destiny” – he can sound remarkably like the Sentenced singer. Whether that’s a good thing is up to you. I can, however, tell you that once things pick up in tempo he quickly shows himself as the weak link. He has little range and projects very little power. Once in a while he breaks out an angrier vocal style, such as on the double bass sections of “Nightriders”. Not bad, but otherwise he just isn’t going to cut it. Hatzigeorgiou simply seems too unsure of himself.

I suppose were I pressed to pick a highlight I’d point to the strangely compelling “Fate of a Lonely Bard”. Sure, it has one of the most overtly cheesy intro licks I’ve ever heard, and is generally as corny as they come, but something about it is warmly inviting. Maybe it’s the lack of speed during the vocal parts that mask the singer’s shortcomings well. Anyways, my experience with the other Wolfcry discs has been largely the same – middling cross of power and traditional metal with vocals that never really got any better. So I’d say that these guys show some promise, but hell, this was 2001, and the band’s been back to the well twice since then. And you know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting different results. In Wolfcry’s case those results are always seemingly kind of average. Not actively bad, but to call this good would be a real stretch.