Author: lycanthropology101

Werewolf Metal Resurgence: Pandemonic

Those who saw my Werewolf Band Roundup in February probably remember my short, bemused paragraph on the vanished werewolf metal band Pandemonic. Well, somehow or another, the lead singer of Pandemonic, Mikael Ullenius, stumbled upon the post.

And what do you know, he unearthed a lot of old Pandemonic material.

The first was, of course, putting some songs back online. Full-length album The Authors of Nightfear and the 2002 demo Ravenous have been posted in their entirety for free download from Last.fm, with an added comment from Ullenius that he’d post the 2004 demo The Art of Hunting as soon as he could find better bitrate versions of the songs.

Beyond that, he posted a pair of old videos to his YouTube channel as well: a live video of “Tower Bell,” and a video of “Changeling Eve,” as seen below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMV8HVa6U1c

Ullenius himself can be found on Twitter, which he appears to have joined only recently.

Academia Interlude: On Little Red

Those who enjoy werewolves have likely been exasperated in recent years with the two releases of god-awful “Little Red Vs Werewolves” films Red Riding Hood and Red: Werewolf Hunter. Red Riding Hood, after all, is a children’s cautionary tale, and the wolf is merely a wolf.

Supposedly.

In actuality, the standard Little Red Riding Hood story has changed quite a bit since it first began to be told. The modern-day rendition comesfrom the brothers’ Grimm book on fairy tales, Children’s and Household Tales (A.K.A. Grimm’s Fairy Tales), and their rendition of the story, “Little Red Cap.” The brothers Grimm, however, specialized in fairy tales that were prominent in Germany. Many of Little Red’s roots lie in France.

In fact, in some French variations, the tale is so different that there is no heroic woodsman, and the wolf is no longer a wolf at all. In The Grandmother’s Tale, one such variation collected in 1885, it is a bzou—a werewolf.

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ICYMI: GrimWolf Enters Studio, Sockweb Drops Debut

California werewolf metallers GrimWolf have confirmed that they are entering the studio this weekend to begin recording drum tracks for a new album. This album will be the long-awaited follow-up to their 2011 debut full-length, Lycanthrope. GrimWolf have not revealed the title of their new album yet, merely hinting to keep an eye out for the next few weeks.

See the official announcement from their March 2014 full moon update here:

Check them out on Facebook here!

Father/daughter grindcore outfit Sockweb have released their debut full-length, a concept album named Werewolf. The album was funded through a successful Indiegogo campaign last year, though due to various complications was pushed back several months. But they are back now, and as of March 25, the album has finally dropped!

Buy the new album here:

Or, if you aren’t sure you want to drop $8/$15 on the full-length, check out the Bullies Are Mean EP—get a taste of four tracks from the full-length at the low price of $1!

Check Sockweb out on Facebook here!

Reviewing “Night Music;” or, My Continuing Infatuation with Queer Werewolves

If any of you are familiar with the person behind the blog, you are probably aware of this already. For those of you who aren’t: the person behind the blog is very into stories about werewolves in which the main character is not a white straight man. No apologies will be made for this; the blogger is very much a snob about these kinds of things, and is easily bored with reading stories about the same character with different names.

But, I digress. The point is, I’m always on the lookout for werewolf stories that break the mold that werewolf stories tend to stay in. Female werewolves? Awesome. Female werewolves that also don’t swoon about male werewolves? More awesome.

This is how I came to find out about Andronica Llewellyn, the “classy lesbian werewolf from the Eighteenth Century.” And shortly after finding out about Miss Llewellyn, I came to find out about the first volume of her memoirs, Night Music.

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Interview: Werewolves in Siberia

For those of you who follow my Twitter, you have probably heard that lately I’ve been enjoying the hell out of an 80s-inspired synth rock project called Werewolves in Siberia.

It’s dark, contemplative, and delightfully evocative. You can definitely hear the 80s inspiration in the music as well; if you close your eyes you can practically feel the VHS player humming in the background. Still, it has a modern touch, with a clean sound and rock/metal inspired drums. For me, it’s perfect music for things like driving and writing: when I need something to set the mood, but doesn’t have distracting lyrics either. (I like to sing, what can I say.) What’s more, the project has a new album coming soon, so I got in touch with Chris Cavoretto, the man behind it all, to talk about Werewolves in Siberia.

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This Day in Werewolf History: “Nattens madrigal” Released in 1997

Nattens madrigal

Nattens madrigal – Aatte hymne til ulven i manden (that is, in English, Madrigal of the Night – Eight Hymns to the Wolf in Man) turns 17 today. On the 2009 IGN list of ten great black metal albums, Nattens madrigal is often thought of as one of the defining concept albums regarding lycanthropy.

The album documents the transformation of a werewolf who, succumbing to the efforts of Satan, turns to evil, wandering the city in a feverish rage before finally murdering his lover, and waking to blood and wine on his hands.

The album’s recording is lo-fi and thus takes some getting used to for those who don’t enjoy the sound provided. It is, however, a significant album, and as such if you’ve never given it a listen (or given its lyrics a read-through), you should check out Nattens madrigal today.

Werewolf Band Roundup

While it isn’t as prevalent a genre as, say, hip hop or rock, werewolf bands—my umbrella term for bands that play either entirely or almost entirely music about werewolves—are surprisingly prevalent in the underground music scene. I’ve taken the liberty of rounding up the ones that I know of.

Pandemonic

Pandemonic

Good luck finding anything about these guys anymore.

Pandemonic was a thrash metal band active from 1999 to 2004. They had five releases—a cassette demo, a split album, a full-length album, and two demo EPs—before eventually vanishing off the face of the earth. And the face of the internet, as well. Previously they had a website in which you could download the tracks, though the link quickly went dead and was never updated. The website itself no longer exists. For a while, it was impossible to listen to Pandemonic unless you were already fortunate enough to have the hard copies on you, as there were no sites anywhere selling them. These days, your best bet is to keep a close eye on eBay, as the full-length album The Authors of Nightfear has been known to surface there on rare occasions. As for digital music, you’ll merely have to be satisfied with the lone track posted to Youtube from Pandemonic’s final EP The Art of Hunting.

Nonetheless, the band was emphatically a werewolf metal band. If you have any doubts, Encyclopaedia Metallum has the entire discography cataloged, as well as most of the lyrics and cover artwork. (more…)

Highlights from #DrawAWerewolfDay (February 2014)

#DrawAWerewolfDay takes place every full moon. The task is simple: draw a werewolf and tag it with the hashtag! Here are some highlights from this month’s celebration.

https://twitter.com/weremagnus/status/434429529205927936

For more artwork, check out the hashtag on twitter, either tag on tumblr, or the tumblog run by the folks from @werewolfnews.

The next #DrawAWerewolfDay is March 16.

Be ready!

Insert “Time of the Month” Joke Here

Let’s not kid ourselves. Werewolves unfortunately do lend themselves to “time of the month” jokes, whether we like it or not.

This took less than thirty seconds to find on google.

See? This took less than thirty seconds to find on Google.

Usually the jokes about women/werewolves/”that time of the month” get on my nerves to no end, but I’m willing to accept the joke just for this post. Because yes, as just about anyone with a uterus can tell you, “monthlies” are filled with stress, rage, feral hunger, and  way more blood than anyone realistically needs to deal with for an extended period of time.

But again, for the sake of this Kickstarter, I’m willing to let it go. Because for once, it actually fits.

Introducing Period Panties, the “fun underwear that high-fives you for being a woman and serves as a warning to others.” (more…)

This Day in Werewolf History: Lon Chaney Jr. Turns 108

A very happy birthday to the original Wolf Man himself, Lon Chaney Jr.! Born in 1906, Mr. Chaney would be 108 today. He made a name for himself playing the tragic character Larry Talbot in the 1941 film The Wolf Man, and would eventually become one of the most recognizable monsters in modern cinema, going on to reprise his role in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. He also played a werewolf (not necessarily the wolf man himself) in similar makeup in the 1959 film La Casa del Terror.

As Chaney is the only Universal Monster who did not receive his own sequel, yet also the only Monster to be played by the same actor, take a moment today to kick back and watch The Wolf Man, and raise a glass and howl for the wolf man!