9000 John Doe
The Spirit of The Firewolf

John Doe, 9000 of them from Denmark comes with a second album. Their first was described in terms of hillbilly hardcore and that sort of thing, this is less hillbilly and more sophistication. Also more ordinary in terms of style and creativity, there are some hillbilly sounds in terms of little harmonica but it is mostly hardcore, or metalcore they play. Their first album was released in 2014 and now their second comes around with plenty of energy and spirit. There are even some Danish curse words at the end – how cool isn’t that?

Overall this album adheres to standards of the hardcore and metalcore musical styles, powerful and energetic music with screamy hardcore vocals and that sort of thing. Decent variation and a short enough playing time to give a rather intense listening experience, and with a good sounds and production it should appeal to fans of this kind of music. But it can hardly be described as innovative or creative, and originality is not a word I would use when describing this album, I might do if I use the world lack of in front.

Hardly original or memorable are ways to describe how this legend of the firewolf sounds. But it is likeable, it is good and it has good songs where I particularly likes the opening pair and the ending song. Those are good, the weakness is that it will probably not really come to mind when summarising the best of 2018 towards the final days of the year. Labelling it good but not very memorable is probably a good way to put words to paper on how this album sounds.

Not memorable but good and if you are a fan of the core, the hardcore or the metalcore it could certainly be an exciting thing to look a little closer at. I think they do what they do well but perhaps they should have been a bit less sophisticated, more rednecky or hillbilly as that would perhaps made them seem less evolved but also more original and exciting. I think we can conclude this review with the claim that these Danes have put together a pretty good album.

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