Wucan – Axioms

Axioms, the latest album from German throwback rockers, Wucan, found its way to my inbox a couple weeks ago as part of a double press email courtesy of the good folks at SPV Recordings. It was paired with none other than the upcoming new Vicious Rumors album, The Devil’s Asylum, which I promise we’ll get to next week, but I digress. Described as a band who “references hard rock, krautrock, East German rock, and heavy metal”, Wucan have been rocking in the free world since 2012, yet this is the first time they’re supersonic stylings have graced these seasoned ears. Between the aforementioned description and trippy Voivod meets Hipgnosis album art, I was intrigued.

Let me just say that upon my first and second spins of Axioms, the initial description in Wucan’s press release does not begin to properly describe the music within. With a one-two ’70s metal punch in “Spectres of Fear” and “Irons in the Fire”, I hastily assumed I was in for just another proto-metal clinic, and a compelling one at that. “Spectres” establishes the album’s unique mood with its bizarro fusion of Stained Class era Priest grit and Jethro Tull derived flute theatrics, while “Irons” brings even more heaviness in the form of a NWOBHM tinged barn burner. You want ‘eavy? You got it!

Then we get to “Wicked, Sick and Twisted”, which is where this album takes a radical turn. With a title like that, one would expect a nasty, snarling slab of Sabbathian doom or a battering ram of a speedster, right? Wrong. Instead, we get a dance-worthy number (yes, you read that correctly) that can best be branded as progressive disco rock…and my goodness, it slaps. If you threw in a horn section, one could easily mistake it for an Earth, Wind & Fire album cut, no joke! Things only get weirder come “KTNSAX”: A bass-heavy new wave tune with a hard rock bite, reminiscent of early ’80s Blue Öyster Cult or the Chris Black fronted Circle offshoot, Aktor.

By the time Axioms reaches its halfway point, “Expect the unexpected” becomes the mantra, and that’s all the listener can do. The wildly exotic “Holz auf Hofz” plays like a forgotten single featured on an episode of The Day After the Sabbath, while “Pipe Dreams” reverts back to the heaviness that opened the album, going full blown jam metal mode akin to Mk. II era Purple. Just as “Spectres” and “Irons” are a one-two old school metal punch, the title track and “Fountain of Youth” can also be viewed as a pair, in which Wucan showcase their prog side. “Axioms” is one part atmospheric prog dream, one part heavy prog adventure, and all parts enthralling. “Fountain of Youth”, on the contrary, plays like an old Yes suite, complete with vocal harmonies and a steady balance of darkness and light.

In a year jam packed with killer ’70s inspired releases, Wucan’s Axioms might be the most compelling I’ve heard thus far, or at the very least tied with Phantom Spell’s Heather & Hearth. Far from a cheap mishmash of recycled sounds of yesteryear, Axioms is an all killer, no filler album of hard and heavy, prog and beyond goodness. There’s something for virtually everyone to enjoy, headbangers, normies, and everyone in between. If you can’t get down with Wucan, you don’t like music, period.

9 out of 10

Label: Long Branch Records

Genre: Hard Rock

For fans of: Coven, Jethro Tull, Cherokee