Wolfmother - Wolfmother (2005)

I’ve always had an on-off relationship with stoner-rock. Back in the day, I used to consider it bland, superficial and annoying as fuck.  As each season and natural catastrophe came and passed, stoner-rock was attracting more fragile minds in its groovy seductive rhythms than a light bulb hanged in a swamp swarming with flies. I soon found out that it can reproduce; hordes of incestuous children started spawning from all over the world, creating a mesmerizing diversity of demented stoner-related bands, whose purpose was none other than to spread the Word. Be it stoner metal, psychedelic stoner, Bedrock stoner,  albums of each of these genres were handed to all people, regardless of age, gender or sexual fetishes…  Then I got hit by a metaphorical brick in the form of Queens of the Stone Age’s debut album, joined the hoard and stopped being such a pussay.

Because QOTSA deserves a much longer and bombastic introduction, I’ll just write about Wolfmother and call it a day. Wolfmother is an Australian group of guitar-savvy kangaroos formed in Sydney, in the I-can’t-believe-it’s-been-more-than-a-fucking-decade-ago year of 2000. Unfortunately, the band has suffered a ton of line-up changes (being Australia, I guess that they were frequently engaged in epic battles with giant spiders while touring), so I won’t bother with it. Knowing that Andrew Stockdale is the lead singer is enough.

Giant spiders get caught in my afro.

The subject of today’s analysis is Wolfmother’s self-titled album (why the F--- no, I’m not going through that rant again), which, frankly, I fucking hated at first.  How I had the will to listen to it even after I almost set my house on fire is beyond my reckoning.  But after a while, it grew on me. And I mean, IT GREW, man, like my grandmother’s plants after a hellish summer.  That’s also when I realized that I was taking it too seriously and I fucking hated myself for this.

Basically, Wolfmother is an energetic, booze filled epic journey of badassness.  The album opens with Colossal, a not-so-suggestive-at-all-named track which sets the tone for the entire record. You know from its first chords what to expect, and that, in my opinion, is a pretty fucking nice thing for an album that is not meant to be taken seriously. I like my things neat and clear. 

Although many label them as a ‘’hard rock’’ band due to their obvious Black Sabbath and AC/DC influences, I tend to disagree.  That’s not even supposed to be a genre; what’s that supposed to represent? The decibels? The intensity? Racist views? Is it sexual? Anyway, you get my point: it’s a too-general term and the people using it should be stoned to death.  I won’t label them as anything and I’ll take them for what they are:  a flamboyantly loud band that knows how to satisfy its fans.  Bad ass riffs, chaotic drumming, simplistic but thrill-inducing bass lines and shrieking, complex guitar solos are the elements that draw adrenaline-junkies like me to a band and they fucking know it. 

Analyzing the lyrics would be like putting ketchup on pizza (you don’t do that. Ever.), so I’ll have to skip to the delivery.  Andrew Stockdale proved that he is an excellent front man and spits his lines with the utmost intensity. Up until Wolfmother, I wouldn’t have believed that a front man can be so intense without being in a death metal band even if my life depended on it.  Songs like Woman, Joker & The Thief, Pyramid and Dimension are perfect examples of Stockdale’s talent and dedication and you should listen to them until you collapse of exhaustion. 

Other than being the album that made my week, Wolfmother is a 12 track record that every person with a sense of adventure could enjoy. If you’re not a fucking asshole, of course.