Reports of Wolfmother’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
The Grammy-winning revivalists from Down Under return with their follow-up to 2014’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it New Crown, their self-released digital outing that withered from critical and popular neglect. This time around, hooking up with producer Brendan O’Brien (AC/DC, Pearl Jam), Andrew Stockdale returns to the grandiose, full-throttle fervour of the debut, the 10 tracks bristling with crunchy riffs, piledriver tempos and chest-beating choruses large enough to merit their own postal codes.
Belters like Victorious and City Lights erupt with taut, muscular hooks while Eye Of The Beholder unfurls from a punchy, mid-tempo funk number into an exhilarating, sweat-drenched gallop to the finish. While early 70s references abound, that era’s rock was dominated by a jammy looseness that’s absent in Wolfmother’s ornate, yet tightly-crafted sound and Victorious marks a gratifying return to form.
Balanced by jangly acoustic rockers like Best Of A Bad Situation and Pretty Peggy’s hooky acoustic confections, Victorious is ideally digested as a whole, preferably with loudspeakers on the top of a mountain.
