Written By Wolves – Secrets
(Tenfold Records)
Reviewed by Doug Peters.
Written By Wolves have been a stalwart of the local music scene for the past few years – slowly working their way up from being that catchy support act to the polished headlining act they are today. Not to say the ambition wasn’t clear to everyone from the very beginning – I remember a certain Kings Arms (RIP) gig fondly where I received multiple excited texts and messages from different people along the lines of “These bastards have modified the Kings Arms stage! There’s multiple drum risers and a bloody catwalk in here!”.
Fans of the golden age of New Zealand reality TV will recognise lead singer Michael Murphy as the guy who should have won New Zealand Idol, with a short solo career immediately after – even managing to score an illustrious NZ Number 1 chart position for his single ‘So Damn Beautiful’ (although old dudes like me also know him from the Taupō high school metal band Deadset and later 5Star Fallout). Fast forward fifteen or so years and we have Michael teamed up with Davie Wong, Bahador Borhani, Karl Woodhams and Oli Lyons (themselves all also veterans of the local music scene) to bring us this debut Written By Wolves album ‘Secrets’.
Kicking off with an awkwardly paced auto-tuned solo vocal track (Start The Fire) that while does a totally ok job of introducing the album could have been left out in favour of the complete slap in the face that is Let It Burn to start the album proper. Let It Burn is the sound of a band who has been hinting of big things finally cracking the formula and dropping quite possibly the best track I’ve heard from a local act in a very long time. All heavy emo rock with a metal vibe, a mixture of clean and screamed vocals (with the odd gang vocal thrown in for good measure) – hell there’s even hints of Fall Out Boy mixed with ‘Bad’ era Michael Jackson in the vocal delivery – while being a strange combination it. Just. Works.
And that kind of sums up Secrets for me – Written By Wolves have taken a few risks and tried something new within the heavy rock genre and it has resulted in an absolute winner. Other standout tracks on the album include ‘Tell Me What You’re Running From’, ‘Better Luck next Time’ (The Slipknot style backing mixed with Michael’s clean vocals is something to behold indeed), ‘Something To Save’, ‘Lucky Stars’ (This track featuring fellow Kiwi artist Thomas Oliver has radio hit written all over it – although I wish they’d gone with a warm toned acoustic guitar sound instead of the clean electric they used, but that’s just nit-picking really) and ‘The Way Out’ (This Pendulum styled track ensures this will be a crossover festival DJ hit all over the country this summer from Rhythm & Vines through to Bay Dreams).
In fact, I don’t think there is a track on Secrets that doesn’t have some kind of redeeming feature. Sure the emo pop-punk aspect (I believe the band call it ‘Cinematic Rock’) of Written by Wolves won’t be favoured by the traditional Metal crowd while a lot of this album will be too heavy for the commercial folks, but if your music tastes sit somewhere in the middle then this is an album that demands a listen.
One word of warning though – to truly appreciate this album I recommend a nice grunty set of speakers turned up LOUD. This isn’t an album to be enjoyed on headphones or through crappy computer speakers. I can’t wait to hear these tracks live, I have a feeling while this album is an amazing accomplishment, live many of the tracks will only be increased in intensity to be truly superb.
There’s no way around it – Written By Wolves may not be your cup of tea. But if you give them a chance they’ll worm their way under your skin and implant their tunes into your brain so well that you’ll be humming them for days to come. Well done ‘Wolves, you’ve released a stunner here!
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