Werewolves are almost a 3-piece supergroup of sorts, made up of Dave Haley (Psycroptic, Ruins, King), Matt Wilcock, and Sam Bean (both of The Bezerker, The Antichrist Imperium). Driven forward by blind hatred and blast beats alone they are getting ready to release debut album The Dead Are Screaming.
The opener “Establish Dominance” is incredibly fitting as it refers to changing men into beasts, and really from then on in its nine tracks, of hellacious brutality with stand out tracks “Beating Those We Despise” and “Showering Teeth”.
Much like the speed of the tracks from The Dead are Screaming, the band went from inception to recording the album and g to a label within two months, the most difficult part of the process was actually coming up with the band name itself.
“Matt and Dave had a coffee on a Monday last year, and decided to do a band. All their other bands have these long production schedules and are detailed, technical, and serious ventures. They wanted to do something nimble and idiotic… blackened caveman death-metal without any pretension whatsoever. Like Marduk and Mortician smooshed together, then bashed over the head with phone books until they were blithering idiots. Sam put his hand up on the Wednesday for bass and vocals. By Friday, we had a band.
“By the following Monday, Matt had written the entire record. Dave recorded all his drums the weekend after. Two weeks later, Sam recorded bass and vocals. It was mixed and mastered the week after that, and we received the cover art around about the same time. A few weeks later, Prosthetic offered us a three-album deal and in the spirit of the band (doing things really quickly without thinking) we accepted. So basically, the band went from inception to first album and g within two months.
“Then came the really hard part: coming up with a band name. We’re not fucking kidding, this has been the most difficult part of the entire venture so far. We eventually settled on Werewolves due to the connotations of savagery, bestiality, death, evil, and excess body hair. We want this album to be like the opposite of the Monolith in 2001… something that lands in front of a bunch of grunting primates and somehow makes them even more stupid.”
The album was mixed by Joe Haley (Psycroptic), with artwork by Mitchell Nolte.
I’m honestly blown away with just how fast these Werewolves move. This debut is full of blind hatred, blast beats and unrelenting brutality.
Header image by Wilson Bambrick
The Dead Are Screaming will be released via Prosthetic Records on April 24th
