There's no denying Australian heavy
rock
trio
Wolfmother
have been raised on
-- specifically, raised on '70s
. Problem is, from all appearances on their eponymous debut, they made their journey into the past via the twin gateway drugs of
the White Stripes
and
Queens of the Stone Age
, and once they dug back to the original
Zeppelin
Sabbath
texts (stopping along the way for some
Soundgarden
discs and maybe for lyrical inspiration,
Yes
Rush
), they indulged so much it screwed with their sense of aesthetics. They threw everything and anything together, not bothering with minor problems like how their frenzied
retro-rock
doesn't quite support songs with titles like
"The White Unicorn"
"Where Eagles Have Been"
--
drew inspiration from
J.R.R. Tolkien
certainly sang about fairies and gnomes, but neither band sounded as precious, inarticulate, or confused as
does here. And their naivete is not limited to guitarist
Andrew Stockdale
's stock swords 'n' sorcery imagery: they mix up their musical cliches in bewildering ways, as riffs lifted from
(
"Rusty Cage"
provides the opening for
"Joker & the Thief"
) give way to a
QOTSA
stomp as sung by
Jack White
(whose ghost is also heard on the title of
"Apple Tree,"
not to mention its frenetic verses), or how a complicated
Zep
riff is graced by a
Jethro Tull
flute solo on
"Witchcraft."
Blame it on their youth -- all this stuff was new to them, so they absorbed it all at once then quickly regurgitated it in ways that won't seem to make much sense to anybody familiar with their inspirations (and their clunky
funk
-
workout
"Love Train"
simply won't make sense to anybody anywhere). At times,
's unintentionally bizarre amalgams are kind of delightful, and the group does have a basic, brutal sonic force that is pretty appealing, but even at their best, they never banish the specters of the bands that they desperately mimic throughout this promising but muddled debut. They have enough of a good thing going here to suggest that they'd be a killer live band, but not enough to make this record all too memorable on its own terms. [A 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition was released on LP in 2015 and included four previously unreleased (in the U.S.) bonus tracks: "The Earth's Rotation Around the Sun," an acoustic version of "Vagabond," a remix of "Joke & the Thief," and a remix of "Woman."] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine