{"id":91773,"date":"2019-04-26T09:15:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T14:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/?p=91773"},"modified":"2019-04-26T09:33:43","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T14:33:43","slug":"review-grand-magus-wolf-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/review-grand-magus-wolf-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Grand Magus &#8211; <i>Wolf God<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Epic metal, epic metal everywhere.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Bridging the sometimes massive gap between old school metal and power metal is a type of metal I just simply refer to as &#8220;epic metal&#8221;, although I do lump some power metal bands into it, but that&#8217;s another story. While I hope don&#8217;t create another sub-genre label which earn groans from all the &#8220;Why can&#8217;t it just be metal?&#8221; crowd, it really does sum up a collection of bands that don&#8217;t quite seem like power metal, like <strong>Eternal Champion<\/strong> and <strong>Grand Magus<\/strong>. While I still eagerly await a new <a href=\"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/eternal-champions-top-5-sword-wielding-anthems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eternal Champion<\/a> album, Grand Magus has released a new album called <em>Wolf God\u00a0<\/em>via Nuclear Blast records.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_33176\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/H8mKbFqGkwU?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Grand Magus formed in Stockholm, Sweden in the mid 90&#8217;s under the name <strong>Smack<\/strong> as a three piece heavy metal band. Drawing influence from <strong>Rainbow<\/strong>, <strong>Judas Priest<\/strong> and over course, Manowar the band decided to take on more &#8220;epic&#8221; themes by changing their name to Grand Magus. Aside from a few changes in drummer, the band has had a steady lineup of Janne &#8220;JB&#8221; Christoffersson on guitar and lead vocals with Mats &#8220;Fox&#8221; Skinner providing bass + backing vocals, the current drummer of the band is Ludwig &#8220;Ludde&#8221; Witt. Since the band&#8217;s inception they have released eight albums, with <em>Wolf God\u00a0<\/em>being their ninth album. This raises the question has Grand Magus maintained their epicness or have them become a stale fable of old?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_37661\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Bn0o8Ly95UE?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While the comparison to <strong>Manowar<\/strong> is commonly made for Grand Magus, on\u00a0<em>Wolf God\u00a0<\/em>it seems that the band has forgone this influence for the most part. Instead, there&#8217;s more of a focus on sounding like an old school metal band from the late 70&#8217;s. However, this hasn&#8217;t really improved things for the better. Instead the album seems rather flat and devoid of any real stand out songs. While I surprisingly don&#8217;t tire of lyrics of brave warriors and wolves, I kept expecting there to be a stand out song or two on this album. Alas, it wasn&#8217;t to be.<\/p>\n<p>The closest the album comes to achieving this is on &#8220;He Sent Them All to Hell&#8221;, which has the right amount of lyrical catchiness and headbangable riffs. The music on <em>Wolf God<\/em> is never bad, however it does feel like the band was holding something back on both the writing and recording of this album. While Grand Magus&#8217; vocals never were the main attraction of the band, on previous albums they seemed more spirited than they do on this album; I kept expecting a song like &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/fOV9ElWyMIc\">Steel Versus Steel&#8217;<\/a> from\u00a0<em>Triumph And Power, <\/em>to appear on this album but that never happened. That&#8217;s the problem with this album, you&#8217;ll forget you even listened to it only five minutes after you turn it off. I kept expecting more but I never really got what I was hoping for.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_11761\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AhfcWqCvLyA?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>These guys aren&#8217;t posers, so don&#8217;t ask them to leave the hall just yet. Instead go back through the band&#8217;s discography and listen to some of their earlier albums to see what Grand Magus is all about. Bands like Eternal Champion, <strong>Sumerlands<\/strong> and co. have all proven that traditional heavy metal can still be exciting, but listening to this album you wouldn&#8217;t know it. I give this album 3 out of 5 flaming toilets ov hell.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3_of_5.jpg?ssl=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-50643\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3_of_5.jpg?resize=1200%2C274&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3_of_5.jpg?w=1249&amp;ssl=1 1249w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3_of_5.jpg?resize=300%2C68&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3_of_5.jpg?resize=768%2C175&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3_of_5.jpg?resize=1024%2C234&amp;ssl=1 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Epic metal, epic metal everywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":92027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Grand Magus is takin' it back to the old school","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,70],"tags":[6902,528,6048],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Grand-Magus-Wolf-God.png?fit=710%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91773"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91955,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91773\/revisions\/91955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}