Blood of the Wolf are a contemporary extreme metal act from Chicago that feel somewhere within Blackened Death Metal. Certainly they hit their music hard and extreme and pair it with a similar vocal style to Vader. All the while the fast drums and relentless tremolo picking is reminiscent of many Black Metal bands. The appropriately titled II: Campaign of Extermination provides a sense of their maturing, but early in their careers, sound. This is their second album since 2015’s I: The Law of Retaliation, which appropriately broke ground with an energetically brutal approach to their music. Blood of the Wolf seem to know exactly what they want and certainly don’t hold back with it. Where their first album varied it’s sound a bit into a varied sense of aggression, II: Campaign of Extermination feels more focused. This actually is a criticism of neither album. The relentless punishment of II: Campaign of Extermination feels dark and powerful like a drill to the ear in this album but can feel repetitive compared to its predecessor. When their sound just goes all with it, Blood of the Wolf feel like a force to be reckoned with and their carnage is epic. Songs like ‘Campaign of Extermination’, ‘The Sword is My Light and Salvation’ and ‘A Sermon of Slaughtered Foes’ gets this down perfectly. The stop-start riffs never leave out a sense of the passionate drive for blunt force trauma to your ears. It is Extreme Metal relentlessly powerful in its aims and confident to drive its points home, keep an atmosphere but stop and start in a way that oddly feels groovey at times. This makes for much more memorable and powerful songs. It is clear by now that Blood of the Wolf know exactly what they’re doing and what their striving toward. They love what they do and are confident in an aggressive form of music that they’re ready to throw their all into. This is both atmospheric and epic in a way that only Extreme Metal can hammer in to you. We will be hearing more from Blood of the Wolf and their violent music will come back again and again. Score: 8/10 Facebook: /BloodoftheWolfmusic Twitter:@WolfBloodmn