Wolverine -wt Cold Light of Monday -wl Earache -wf “Snikt!” These guys are apparently named after my favorite comic book superhero, Logan, so you know they’ve got some taste. In terms of the music, though, the first track of Cold Light of Monday is a real piece of crap. The vocalist does a really over-dramatic vocal bit, while some synthesizers play pseudo-spooky melodies underneath. The rest of the album follows suit. -wm I’m not really sure why these guys are on Earache. Their music would give absolutely no one an earache; it’s barely metal, and fits better in the melodic Goth rock category. Synthesizers, acoustic guitars and dramatic Geoff Tate sounding vocals pervade this mess of an album. The guitars are kept to a minimum, for the most part. When they finally do show up, they’re of the Dream Theatre variety (i.e. lots of drama, eBows, obscure scales, etc). It seems fairly evident that the members of Wolverine attended at one time the various rock musician schools (Guitar Institute, maybe), as the musicianship is infallible. -wm If you’re into the dramatic, gothic, and a guitarist who should probably playing violins and cellos in a symphony somewhere, you’ll really dig Cold Light of Monday. Personally, I don’t want my metal bands showing me their softer side, and I definitely don’t want them to sound anything like Dream Theatre. When I pick up an Earache record, I want ugliness, black death, crushing, bruising guitars and growling vocals, not this overdone “metal lite.” -wd Earache: http://www.earache.com/ -wb Daniel Mitchell