Heralded as black/sludge, Wolvhammer are a bit more than what you’d guess. The basis of the eight tracks on display on Crawling into Black Sun are built on a foundation of thick, sludgy sounding rhythm guitars that go through typical lumbering sludge riffs as well as bulky tremolos. Underneath this ponderous guitar work, snare hits crack like breaking bones. Bass is largely absent from the picture except for the loud kick drum. The instrumental work is excellent, but the icing on the cake is Clemans’ vocals. His gut-wrenching, emotive combination of an angry hardcore shout and a ferocious black metal snarl encompasses all the hate, anger, fury, rage of mankind. Clean vocals act as a counterpoint to this harrowing performance like on the title track, offering a glimpse of hope in an otherwise hopeless situation. There are also some hardcore styled gang shouts that work awfully well. The music is mostly a rocking, blackened sludge metal, but there are also some clearly hardcore-derived moments with tons of attitude and style.

Not only do these Americans have attitude, they also have a lot of songwriting talent. There are a handful of tracks that don’t live up to the rest, but on the whole this is a very consistent and mature release. Fans of Wolvhammer’s labelmates Coffinworm would do well to check these guys out. While I doubt it would have placed on my favorite albums of 2014 list, Clawing into Black Sun is a damn fine effort and worth spending an evening with. If you’re in the mood for some down to earth aggression, you can’t go wrong with this album.