One of my
favorite things about being a metal fan in 2013 is that with the internet, you
can literally find hundreds, if not thousands, of bands you’ve never heard of
every year. The rise of Bandcamp and
embedded tracks means you can hear bands at a clip like never before, which is
fantastic. Of course the flip side of
that is sometimes bands slip through the cracks, and when you finally hear
them, you curse your stupidity and wish to Dio that you’d found them
sooner. That sums up my experience with
Howl over the past month, because evidently they had a self-titled EP in 2008
and a debut full-length titled Full of
Hell in 2010, even though I didn’t learn of their existence – not to
mention their impending album Bloodlines
– until a few weeks ago.