In a nightmarish dystopian future where all notions of art are outlawed and fun is whispered, myth Wolfmother still exist in their four hundred and fifty second incarnation; free to churn out their plodding retro-rock to ever diminishing groups of lobotomised brutes. Totalitarian authorities tolerate their continued existence for they are sublimely anti-music, the antithesis of creativity, a cultural void so ineffectual as a means of escapist pleasure they are considered by the general populace to be a form of sadistic torture, more brutal than the dictatorship that imprisons their every freedom.
In 2016, mere months before Donald Drumpf will declare war on anyone with normal hair and plunge the world into eternal darkness (which he’ll hate, because he hates anything black), Wolfmother release their fourth album ironically entitled Victorious; a record so mired in banality it will cause listeners to succumb to defeatism and allow our wretched leaders to put the finishing touches to their bid for total tyranny.
Wolfmother, my friends, are the greatest single threat to our liberty and they must be stopped.
Don’t let the Muse-ish opener to “Baroness” fool you as frontman Andrew Stockdale offers up social commentary via Shakespearean romance with the line “He lives with the peasantry, she lives with the higher class”, this man cares nothing for the plight of the proletariat, their sexual entanglements or their yearnings for equality. He’s an instrument of our diabolical overlords’ intent on dumbing us down with his increasingly mediocre riffs and lyrical aptitude that would shame a 7-year-old. “Roses are red, violets are blue, I will take them all and give them to you” he offers on the Mumford and Sons-esque shit show that is “Pretty Peggy”, as you literally feel your brain cells taking their final sorrowful breath. Is it any coincidence that Wolfmother have chosen to ape one of “Dangerous” Dave Cameron’s favourite bands? A man intent on delivering us into a New World Order repressing every last inch of our humanity whilst Stockdale craps out lines like “I was standing in the pouring rain, just to see your face again” with all the originality of a Republican posting a picture of his gun on Twitter.
At only ten tracks long you have to wonder what utter garbage didn’t make the cut on Victorious? If these sorry excuses for songs were mere filler on some grand thirty-song opus, then it might be forgivable, but the fact that these tunes are deemed the best Wolfmother have to offer is utterly deplorable. Their Panto-Sabbath shtick wore thin sometime around the release of their debut EP but here they are eleven years later still churning out their turgid toss on an all too frequent basis. “Don’t you ever get tired and feel like giving up?”, Stockdale offers on the title track and my heart and head scream “YES” in unison as the dreadful realisation that I have another eight tracks to get through suddenly, terribly hits home.
By track seven I feel like maybe they’ve heard my earnest pleas with the poignantly titled “Best of a Bad Situation” but despite the blatant pilfering from Every Picture Tells a Story it’s a track that’s more faeces than Faces. I’ve already sat through the forgettable opener “The Love That You Give”, half-idea that goes nowhere “City Lights”, and “The Simple Life” which opens promisingly with a firm, aggressive riff before drooping pathetically when it should be exploding in technicolour glory across my grateful face; and my boredom is starting to manifest itself in a fascination with watching paint dry.
As utter stinker “Gypsy Caravan” washes over me like raw sewage I begin to contemplate building my own Drumpf Wall to keep pedestrian Aussie rockers firmly within the confines of their own continent, and as my mind drifts further during the lacklustre attempt at psychedelia “Happy Face” I realise that I’m actually feeling thicker for listening to this nonsense and I’ve run out of adjectives to portray my utter loathing for Wolfmother. I switch off before “Eye of the Beholder” even begins, fearful that I will lose all capacity for reason and my next Instagram post will merely consist of a picture of my dribble-soaked beard.
Be warned comrades, to listen to Wolfmother’s latest album, Victorious will diminish all sense of self, annihilate common sense, and weaken your resolve against the imbeciles that threaten to control us. Don’t let stupid prevail because you only have one life and you don’t want to waste it.
Rating: 0/5