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The Hour of the Wolf is the third album from Finland’s Amoth and the first I’ve heard from them even though they’ve been around for 15 years. They play ‘80s-inspired metal that combines the speed and bluster of straight up metal on tracks like "Alice", "Wounded Faith" and the title track with a progressive style on songs like "Traces in the Snow," "Wind Serenade (part I)", and "Wind Serenade (part II)". The former is riff-heavy with vocals not afraid to hit the high notes in an Iron Maiden/Judas Priest kind of way while the latter are progressive in the way Queensrÿche was, circa Rage for Order. The songwriting is uniformly solid though I personally prefer when the band plays fast and heavy as opposed to the slower, melancholy stuff but it is all quite good. The Hour of the Wolf isn’t consistently catchy enough to make the album a true barn burner, but it gets the job done. Probably the biggest compliment I can give Amoth is that while they are in the same arena as bands like Enforcer, Striker, and Lord Fist, they have come up with a sound different enough to make them worth checking out if ‘80s metal, especially the retro kind, is your thing.