Wolf Hoffman: Headbangers Symphony Album Review

Ever since Pablo Barros of Brutallian post a video of Hoffman doing Night On Bald Mountain up on Facebook, at first I was wondering what the video was, so I clicked on it, and watched it. When Hoffman started to the iconic piece of music, and the musicians that were in the video (most were bikers), I was like “Hell Yeah”.

So I went online and downloaded it from hmv.com, and for the last 24 hours I have listened to the album of 11 tracks. The tracks that Hoffman has chosen to do, are from several classical composers.

I really enjoyed this album and the most stand out track are Night On Bald Mountain were Hoffman has caught the essence of the original with his guitar and the Metal drumming and the accompanying violins and cellos. Symphony no 40 is sublime as Hoffman kicks this track into high gear and nails it, and his guitar work on this is brilliant, and the drumming makes the difference from the original being good to an excellent metal cover. Now if you have heard any of the exerts of Swan Lake, you’ll understand that the title piece of music is very dark, Hoffman, how the hell did he manage to make Swan Lake even darker than the original, the only thing that I can come up with is the introduction of the electric guitar, which Hoffman expertly uses. The next track that caught my attention is Pathétique is a track that can be classed in modern terms (its the way Hoffman has arranged it), to be an Instrumental Thrash Metal track.

The rest of the Headbangers Symphony is really good, as it shows off Hoffman’s guitar prowess, and it also shows that (and I have been banging about this for years), Classical music was – when it was first introduce back in the 1700’s – the Rock N’ Roll of its time. Take a look at Beethoven, Mozart, Paganini, Holst and more recently in 1936 Orff when he wrote Carmina Burana. Hoffman has came to an understanding of the links to Classical and Metal and its easiness to co habit with each other.

I would give this album a 5 out of 5 for Hoffman having the balls to do a Metal album full of Classical tracks, and doing them brilliantly

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