Wolfmother: Wolfmother : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Andrew Stockdale, leader of the Australian retro-metal trio Wolfmother, is fluent in the long-lost dialect of authentic rock & roll gibberish. "Come and see the mind's eye/Transfixed upon the why," he howls on the psychedelic power ballad "Mind's Eye," hitting notes that Robert Plant can't reach anymore, as Deep Purple-ish organs swell. The Australians aren't just Darkness-style revivalists, though the trio does walk the same fine clever/stupid line (the album's weakest track, the generic "Woman," sounds like a Darkness outtake). An intriguing garage-rock thread runs through Wolfmother's songs, broadening their sound: One thrashing track, "Apple Tree," could almost be mistaken for the White Stripes. The album also has some of the tastiest fuzz-guitar tones recorded in years, and Jimmy Page-worthy chordal riffing, as on the mighty, Viking-horned anthem "White Unicorn." "Now we live in another time," Stockdale proclaims, and for the song's five-minute length, you'll believe him.