Band:	Wolfhorde
Album:	Hounds Of Perdition
Style:	Black metal, Folk metal
Release date:	January 2019

01. Chimera
02. Doctor Of The Plague
03. Black Song
04. Towers Of Silence
05. Forged In Ice
06. Kill The Light
07. Hounds Of Perdition

According to our own sources here at Metal Storm, Wolfhorde have been around since 2001, taking close to a decade before putting out any material. What were they doing in that time, you ask? Waiting around for their Finnish comrades from other bands to write their material for them, it seems.

Finntroll, Wintersun, Sonata Arctica, Catamenia, Kalmah, Ensiferum, Ensiferum and, oh yeah, Ensiferum, all have their fingerprints all over Wolfhordes Hounds Of Perdition. Do you know what? It's not so bad if distinctly Finnish quasi-extreme, fully-epic folk metal is like, totally your shit. Wolfhorde do an?uhhh?ok job at impersonating their countrymen. They amalgamate so much of what makes this brand of metal so appealing; the whimsical polka jauntiness of Finntrolls Nattfodd, vaguely oriental flavors of Wintersuns Time I, Sonata Arcticas easy accessibility, the chunky riffage of Kalmah, occasionally reaching the ferocity of Catamenias Location: COLD. Shove this all in a blender and present it in an Ensiferum-esque structure.

Wolfhorde is derivative as all hell. Being derivative in and of itself isn't always entirely detrimental. I mean, an album as ambitiously unoriginal as Hounds Of Perdition can be highly satisfying, even if somewhat disposable. Unfortunately, Wolfhorde aren't that satisfying. Where Wolfhorde go wrong is that they merely sound like a deflated version of all their favorites. They're less fun than Finntroll. They're less energetic than Catamenia or Kalmah. They lack the knack for the intuitively timed peaks & valleys of Ensiferum.

Most detrimentally, they don't have the meticulous production values of Sonata Arctica or Wintersun. Now, Wolfhorde obviously don't have the fame of Sonata Arctica, nor the exploitable fanbase of Wintersun, so expecting top-notch production is a little unreasonable. However, this production is offensively amateurish for this type of music. It might have helped them to have consistently bad production in one particular way - they don't even have that. Instead, it sounds like they went through 3 or 4 different inexperienced producers. One moment the synths sound inconsequential, next they drown out the guitars, later both elements are fighting each other in a soupy mess.

While Wolfhorde definitely understand what makes their fellow Finns enjoyable, they're just too unremarkable to feel like anything more than a placeholder between Ensiferum albums.