There are some albums that are brimming with confidence from the first note — an album that knows exactly what it delivers, so the listener best strap in, shut up and crank the dial. In Line for the End Times, the debut release from Cincinnati-based rockers, Howl at the Sky, is just one of those releases.
Howl at the Sky (vocalist Scott Wherle, guitarist Mike Shope, bassist Scott Fithen, drummer John Sims) are devout members of the church of rock and roll and they don’t so much knock as put four well-placed boot marks on the door as they kick it down to distribute their brand of riff-infused sermons. The first half of the album channels acts like Monster Magnet and He Is Legend as the quartet barrels through track after track of driving rhythms and Southern-fried riffs sludgier than a muck-filled bayou. Each member brings layers of sound to the table, with tracks bigger than the sum of their parts and more nuanced song structures that present themselves beyond the first spin. The album is custom-built for rolling down the windows and barreling down the highway at inadvisable speeds. Rest assured, you’ll be rewarded for the repeated spins (just not by the highway patrol).
Throughout the proceedings, Wherle’s voice soars over the grime that his bandmates are so deftly crafting. Rock and metal vocalists can easily get lost in the mix or take a backseat to the instrumentation. Wherle bucks this trend, however, with high-flying vocals that fill in gaps that you didn’t even know were there. Wherle’s range is dynamic while never losing the edge needed in a rock and roll vocalist; one need only hear the menace hidden just under the surface of “Beast With No Eyes” to understand Wherle’s ability to mold his vocals to every occasion. Considering he runs a successful Disney karaoke night around town, he’s likely honed his chops on some of the princesses’ greatest hits.
At the halfway mark, the album takes a turn away from the grunge and gallops of the beginning and begins to shift toward a more desert rock feel, with sounds akin to the likes of Kyuss and Truckfighters appearing in greater numbers. The guitar tones get cleaned up, the tempo is dialed back and songs are given more time to breathe and evolve. “Mother Earth Below” is especially spacey with a looping build that leads to a well-earned crescendo that pays off what the band had built the four minutes prior.
This portion of the album is also where Fithen’s bass playing truly comes to the forefront. Often the unsung hero of rock and metal bands, bass is tasked with keeping the rest of the crew on time and on cue with lines that you can feel but not necessarily hear. But the back half of the album (especially the bass run in “Stink Eye”) pushes Fithen’s playing to the front with riffs that’ll stick to your bones (and in your ears) for days at a time.
Howl at the Sky picks the pace back up for the album’s final (and arguably strongest) track, “The Monsters are Due.” The track would fit right at home on a movie soundtrack about a motorcycle gang and the women who love them, with Fithen’s bass growl mirroring a v-twin engine roaring to life under Shope and Sims’ full-throttle attack. The desert rock stylings of the latter half step aside, allowing for a raucous return to the first half’s punchy, fuzz-laden style that’s just begging for the album to be restarted and the ride to be taken again. And it’s a ride well worth taking.
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This article appears in Jul 12-25, 2023.
