X-terra-Wolves

X-terra-Wolves
Self-produced
2003

This was actually recorded back in 2001-2002, but the writing credits extend all the way back to the late 1980’s. So we what we have here is Christian hard rock/metal that surprised me with the variety of sounds that it contained. The opener “Wake up” is a mid 80’s melodic hard rock with a strong rhythm section and the mildly rough vocals. Next up was “The sun will shine again” which came across some kind of stale pop/rock that might have jammed up the airwaves back in the late 1970’s, but it’s really the only weak track on the CD. After that it’s just a big roller coaster of different influences as we get about three tracks that sound like Poison, one kind of sounds like Twisted Sister, a couple that come near a British Steel-era Judas Priest sound plus one that musically reminded me of a cross between early Pentagram and mid-70’s Alice Cooper and more. I suppose the fact that the writing credits span a time period of 15 years has much to do with the wide variety of sound swirling around on this disc. I think that the strongest part of this disc was the rhythm section of bassist Anne Kachline and drummer Bob Kachline as they just kept solid pounding beats going and remained fairly consistent throughout. The guitars of Bill Hunt are solid and competent enough with a rich tone despite some slightly low production on a several tracks. Hunt’s vocals are mostly on track with a fair amount of range yet he certainly sounds better on the heavier tracks. The biggest shortcoming to me was that on several occasions the lyrics seem a bit jammed in like they are trying a bit too hard to squeeze everything in and the result is serious lack of any kind of flow. Still this is an album was a bit like grab bag because you never quite knew what was coming next because of the mix of sounds and largely the band handles most of the songs just fine.