While the “So Bad It’s Good” concept is very much existent for movies, it seems that in the realm of music, it is rare to come by. I think this stems from the fact that musical incompetence alone is not funny. Rather, the whole package needs to be funny in some meta way. Some have tried, few have managed. In bad movie circles you will also often encounter the idea that something intentionally bad is unfunny and that a good bad movie is honest, but utterly fails in its execution. Having said that, I can´t quite make up my mind if Dungeon Wolf is intentionally bad or not but I would consider this album to be “good-bad”. In some ways, I fail to believe that someone could have made an album like this and still be willing to release it, but incompetence goes a long way. The band is open about being born from tragedy, with their old singer dying from a heroin overdose. A collection of older material on Bandcamp sees the former singer posing topless with chainmail, the promo blurb talking about his death in a heartfelt manner. The contrast is so staggering that my suspicion is that this is a dark joke – if so, a well-executed one. The cover for The White Elf is similarly inept, of course.
Dungeon Wolf additionally boast that they decided on a completely analog direction for their new album. The EP is allegedly recorded completely on reel-to-reel analog, with a noticeable hiss and often abrupt cuts that undermine the supposed untampered quality of the album. Particularly the opener has sections that cut in so abruptly that, again, I struggle to believe someone could be this inept. As musicians, Dungeon Wolf could for the most part be worse. At least as far as the instrumentalists go, they seem to be able to keep time and play without too many mistakes. Yet, I question their choice of guitar tone and tuning. The opener in particular starts out with guitars that are awkwardly out of tune, even if the splicing mitigates it later on. The band tries to stay true to both their influences, those being progressive Folk Rockers Jethro Tull and wholly unproblematic Trve Metal act Manowar. The album features both the quasi-butt rock Trad Metal riffs of the latter and what I suspect are Folk and Classical influences of the former. “Chivalry” in particular quotes Bach‘s “Jesu bleibet meine Freude”, supporting a questionable song about chivalry. Similarly unfortunate lyrics are featured on “Eat my Ass”, ironically telling off women who want to give analingus to the vocalist who had been crass enough to write the song in the first place. Yet again, I am unsure of the ironic content; middle-aged Dad-metallers have a lot of overlap with those who have outdated, or cringe, attitudes toward the opposite sex, so I could see the lyrics being genuine. On the other hand, the comedic timing is just too good, particularly with how randomly and annoyingly earwormy the chorus to “Eat my Ass” can be.
I would be remiss to not at least give a nod to the new vocalist, Herman Passions. His characteristic vocal delivery is the main reason I am leaning towards The White Elf being satirical. Herman has all the markings of a bad singer. His timbre is awfully thin, and he sounds like he has to press and force his voice a lot to reach the highs he chooses to grace the album with. He has bad breath control, often swallowing the last words in a phrase, making his lyrics hard to understand. I have already talked about his lyricism, but it’s worth noting that Herman doesn´t have the best grasp on form, either. His lyrics seem to often start or end abruptly, making the songs sound even more unstructured than they already are. If you are in for “So Bad Its Good”, Herman is worth the price of admission alone. The White Elf hasn’t left me since I started listening to it. It has become something I dedicated too much thought to. Trying to grasp its secrets, I have tried finding out why the EP is like it is. And if it’s albums are anything like a good bad movie, this is the best indicator for it.
