Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cry havoc and let slip the songs of war…for too long the over polished and easily forgotten have had their way, held up in the glare of the television lights, fawned over by many, lauded as saviours of popular music by some, this sense of over-rated gravitas is a million miles from the sound of a truth, of one that is pure and comes with several warnings attached to the side.

One of those truths being that if you neglect all that was fought for, all that was driven by the sweat of the past and in the breaking down of barriers and adding a sense of honest passion to a period of time that was dressed in absolute beige, then you are forcing the anger to manifest, to grow stronger and the beat of the underground to expand, become the wonderfully unruly opposition in a world that has become staid, safe, and verging on the point of no return from the dull and dutiful. It is a crime to let such banality win through and whilst Crimewolf have the chance to speak out in the self titled debut release, there is always hope that such anger, a punk ethic can win the day once more.

It is the call to arms, one that requires no violence or fighting on the stages, nothing but the rightful urge to reclaim music for everyone as sees fit and not one that is shrouded in the glitz and the perfumed, it is chaos of creativity, only seen to fit together when stood back and admired for the pride and the sound that marks down the line of no more, no passing past this point unless you are prepared to down the idea of the polished to death.

In songs such as Dogs, Smoke, Golden, Knots and the bitterness of the finale of Frown, the achievement is to be congratulated and for Chris Tree, David Culleton, James Fletcher-Fallows and Dan Wheeler, the passion is the greatest weapon they possess, it ensnares willingly the listener into the net of taking down the flag of the self-proclaimed and media driven and burning it; an act of defiance but one with a hand held open to others to see the light hoisted up in its stead.

A very good debut, the once driven underground rumble of discontent returns and is audible once more; Crimewolf should terrify the unprepared and thrill those to whom life has been taken up with the fight against the beige and non-descript.

Ian D. Hall