WOLVERINE

It's been a long wait for the new WOLVERINE album. It seems the band lost some momentum after the brilliant beauty of 2006's "Still". That new WOLVERINE album has finally arrived, it's called "Communication Lost", and it one deep, dark, and chilling opus of melancholic progressive rock.

At 71 minutes, it is a dedicated listen to say the very least. Not like "Still" was an album of immediate gratification and three-minute songs, but it did click quicker than is the case of "Communication Lost", thanks in part to unforgettable songs like "A House of Plague". Time invested listening to WOLVERINE's new long player is well worth it though. As with any work of depth and detail, the appeal of the music grows stronger with every one of those dedicated listens.

Referentially, you can point to bands like KATATONIA in trying to describe the sound of WOLVERINE, and it at least works to describe the quieter moments and the cold winds of sorrow that blow across the songs. But an album like "Communication Lost" is much mellower affair that never really approaches anything that could be called metal. The compositions are often long forays into the darkest reaches of human emotion, as made even more stirring by vocalist Stefan Zell. The approach of guitarist Mikael Zell is more often than not subtle or understated, but wholly impacting when necessary, as is the case during the David Gilmour-esque lead on the PINK FLOYD-ian "Embrace" and on the comparatively riff-based robustness of the nine-minute title track. It is during that same track on which the lush atmospheres and soothing melodies of keyboardist Per Henriksson become substantially more pronounced. Drummer Marcus Losbjer is given a few moments to shine there as well. The point is that the sections of heavier contrast against the album's otherwise quiet nature become far more important to the identity of each song precisely because of the skillful arrangements and the players themselves.

Majesty and grace abound on "Communication Lost", usually in long duration. That includes a pair of eight-minute cuts in "Into the Great Nothing" (a quintessential track) and the frost covered denseness of "In Memory of Me". The shorter tracks offer similar feelings of chilly nights, watery eyes, and troubled minds, "Your Favourite War" perhaps the most immediate in terms of melody and closer to some of what was heard on "Still". And yet at only four and a half minutes "Into the Quiet Dawn" with its electronic effects (including vocals) and grand melodiousness ends up as one of the album's most touching, rivaled only by the lyrical heaviness of "Poison Ivy" with its serene acoustic guitar and strings. "What Remains" is right up there too and is one on which the use of space allows Losbjer to paint in shades of grey, combining serene strings/keyboards with Stefan Zell's heartfelt vocal lines. Losbjer's purposefully minimalist work on the aptly titled "Pulse" works wonders against the — you guessed it — pulsating beat on a six-minute track that is punctuated with a soul-bleeding crescendo.

Get the picture? You cannot appreciate "Communication Lost" as the album plays in the background. It is designed for escape and doing so requires complete immersion, preferably experienced through headphones and without distraction of any sort. Only then will you understand just how high above the clouds WOLVERINE soars on this one.