Album Review: Grand Magus – Wolf God

Like the Vikings about whom they sing, Grand Magus have been on a grand voyage over the past 18 years, gradually changing from blues-dripping doomers to purveyors of more bombastic classic metal. They’ve also done some plundering in their time. On 2014’s Triumph And Power they veered dangerously close to becoming Manowar, and on Wolf God there are moments that could easily have been lifted from Judas Priest’s Firepower.

That’s obviously no bad thing, and the slashing riffs of Untamed and To Live And Die In Solitude slot nicely alongside the slower, more epic songs. Frontman JB Christoffersson is not only a riff-lord but also the possessor of one of the finest singing voices in modern metal. What this all means is that Wolf God is an album that melds the more simplified approach of the last couple of albums with a revisited sense of saga-worthy scale, and hits like a Viking hammer to the skull.

Verdict: KKKK