Sometimes when I listen to some of my favorite old bands, my noggin likes to go off on these flights of fancy of how their sound could’ve progressed rather than how they actually did progress. Not to say that a band progressed incorrectly, though there have been a few that have lost their sheen once they learned that ever-elusive fourth chord, but more a matter of how they might’ve ended up sounding had they taken a different road. Where Like Wolves have gone here could’ve easily been terra in which Black Flag or Die Kreuzen might’ve gleefully stomped had they turned left when they hit that fork in the road—loud, big sound with intricate flourishes and hints of psychedelia smuggled in under all the battering guitars, odd time signatures, and howling vocals. Like the aforementioned progenitors of pummeling punk, these guys have the sense, and skill, to work well beyond simple racket-mongering and instead serve up stuff that would make snooty musician-types pause and pay attention after dismissing it out of hand as “noise.”
–jimmy (Hanging Hex, hanginghex.blogspot.com)