Patrick Wolf
Lycanthropy

THE REVIEW

You already know, my friends, I like werewolves: in this intricate forest of life, I am always searching for someone to howl a lovely serenade to me. And by pure chance, stumbling over a root, I came across this young and wild Patrick Wolf, a young wolf who was hiding behind a hedge.

It's all written in his name, and in the title of the debut album, Lycanthropy. Look at the cover... a Peter Pan with a hula hoop in hand, in a dark square where there's a shabby market. Where did he come from? This is how Patrick presents himself, a lanky Irish squatter transplanted to London and barely in his twenties. I've got a crush on this "wolf cub," I'm not ashamed to admit it. Love at first sight! But how can I? Oh, if only I were twenty again!

His music. It's not just the image that fascinates me; it's the album that makes a dirty impression. First listen: starts with wolves growling. Then, in the rest of the album, I hear sublime violas and violins, a ukulele, an accordion, a piano, and sudden, sparse, venomous lashes of a very tight drum machine. No electric guitars, or basses, or drums. The tracks oscillate between brit-folk and essential electronic, between ancient Victorian-style compositions, with female choirs and epic melodies, interspersed with poignant and frenetic dark-wave rhythmic structures. The voice is distinctly brit, balancing between a Robert Smith (a fresh tribute in the song Peter Pan), a Jeff Buckley (hear the superb and deep Demolition), and a Morrissey (undoubtedly Smith-like the most "classic" track, London). An intimate, confident voice, even if often verbose and brazen, lively and emphatic. What a character! An ambitious shaman of notes, the handsome Patrick, who knows how to blend tradition and avant-garde without breaking a sweat, maintaining an underlying coherence that among the tracks of his Lycanthropy often does not fail to amaze.

I read the lyrics. With the first track, Wolf Song ("The moon, let it guide you / when Selene comes, we'll all know how to fight / dear Fenrir, my saviour / come and eat the ones...") we get right into the heart of the "lycanthropy" theme. The second track, Bloodbeat, follows the same coordinates: "...My blood beats black tonight / no need for comfort / no need for light / I am hunting for secrets tonight / Eat the sorrow lick the spark / uh oh my blood beats dark...". Seductive young man!

Curious, I immediately turn to my favorite piece, the seventh, The Childcatcher. Frenzied drum'n'bass, crazy violins, voice pulled between shrill screams and suffering whimpers, and: "I was still a child when you caught me and tied me to your bed / you gave me shoes and pretty clothes / and I gave you what I had between my legs / Just a rite of passage, you held me down and said / I'm gonna be your right of passage, so boy, you better spread, spread 'em...". Oh oh! But here we are talking about pedophilia! The track opens with a terrible chorus: "...run run run as fast as you can but you can't run run from the childcatcher's hands...". Yikes! If I hadn't read the lyrics, I would dance to this piece.

Undoubtedly chilling stories hover among these mad notes and these ancient choirs like the crown of Queen Elizabeth. This boy has an endless, twilight shadow zone where nightmares rendezvous. As colorful and cheerful as the music seems, the lyrics are of a deep and dense black. An explosive mix.

Patrick explains, in an interview, that his album is a concept on the ritual transition from adolescence to adult life, symbolized here by lycanthropy, where a magical and cathartic ceremony is set up, through a circle of fire, beyond, to be reborn into a new life.

"I want two dogs two cats a big kitchen and a welcome mat / I want all this and all shall have / I don't give up / A boy like me don't ever / give up his dream..." (A Boy Like Me) 

I really like this guy, and now I have a strong desire to hold him tight so he doesn't slip away.