19. ORANGE GOBLIN – The Wolf Bites Back
British stoner rock gods Orange Goblin have been a big favourite
of mine for many years, and I’ll always listen to any new album they put
out. Equally, since their late 90s/early
2000s heyday, there have been some major swings in quality. Of their previous three albums, Healing Through Fire was a massive disappointment
in 2007 and came nowhere near getting a place on this list; the brilliant A Eulogy for the Damned then stormed to
a 5th place ranking in 2012; whereas 2014’s forgettable Back from the Abyss probably could have
stayed at the abyss and nobody would have noticed (again, it didn’t come close
to troubling my list that year). Fairly
obviously, a ranking of 19th for The
Wolf Bites Back shows it falls somewhere in the middle of the Goblin’s topsy-turvy recent
output. Not as consistent or original as
A Eulogy for the Damned (and not a
patch on their career best material, such as
2002’s Coup de Grace), The Wolf Bites Back nonetheless again rights the ship and corrects Back from the Abyss’ cardinal sin of
being boring. The riffs here are chunky,
urgent and vital. This time the Goblin have decided to mix both the
thrashy edge of stoner (‘Renegade’) with the doom side (‘Swords of Fire’), and
it’s a blend that suits. One for
existing Goblin fans only, I’d say:
for anyone looking to dip a toe in this (stoner) rock pool for the first time,
check out Coup de Grace instead.
