Bad Wolves
Disobey

Now it is time to look at some bad creatures of the canine variety. It is a fairly new band that had the fortune to record a cover of The Cranberries’ song Zombie where they was going to have a guest appearance by Dolores O’Riordan but she unfortunately passed the same day as she was going to record her part. But she had stated that it was a killer cover and the band did us a favour to release it anyway and it did really well. I suppose that success will also help their debut album and the band in their future musical endeavours – and you can of course hear the song Zombie on this album called Disobey.

When I was sitting down to write about this album I was a bit confused by the song list that is not the same in my promo as it is in the record stores song lists and that includes the one at the band’s own label. Not even the number of songs is the same, my promo has fifteen and the label’s show thirteen – that is too many songs no matter if they are thirteen or fifteen and they could easily have done away with three to five of them – just keep Zombie and it would have worked.

Stylewise they end up being an American heavy metal band, a bit gruff powerful vocals, quite powerful sound and production, kind of like Zombie-like songs without the character and soul, tamed and anonymous. Easy to take to songs and if you like their label-mates Five Finger Death Punch and bands like that you will find this album rather appealing. It could be more varied, but the sound is rather good I think and the album is quite well made overall even though I think Zombie ends out being too much of a stand out song so that it is almost detrimental to the whole. Still, the album would be really boring without that song.

The problem with covering one of the best songs ever written and recorded and doing it well, is that the own songs never quite measure up and no one really hears them. I can’t say that any of the band’s own songs made any impression on me – I thought they were rather good but that is all impression it gave me after hearing the album many times. Zombie on the other hand made an impression immediately and while the original, one of my favourite songs of all time outclasses it, it is still a wonderful song so for me the album feels like one great song and several decent ones.

The thing is also that it feels like an album from a band that probably would have gone largely unnoticed had it not been for the untimely demise of the great Dolores O’Riordan. I think that Disobey is just another one of those albums that is really well made but doesn’t make much of an impression. It is enough to just listen to Zombie and if you want an album with that single the best choice has to be No Need to Argue.

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