POWERWOLF
Biography and full discography of POWERWOLF, with a page for every album, on METAL BOOST.
English Discography Overview
This English discography hub highlights POWERWOLF albums such as Wake Up the Wicked, Interludium, Call of the Wild. The album notes emphasize these records' riffs, vocals, production character, songwriting flow and listening context: The tenth studio album and Powerwolf's fourth German No. 1 — choir and organ intact, every song routed to its chorus by the shortest path. A ninth album that gathers new songs and unreleased material as a bridge to the next chapter, with a covers disc by befriended bands on the deluxe editions. An eighth album that digs into werewolf legend country by country, with Jens Bogren and Joost van den Broek widening the band's sound another step.
Biography
POWERWOLF Biography
Profile
Formed 2003 / Saarbrücken, Germany / Power Metal, Heavy Metal
Members
| Member | Role |
|---|---|
| Attila Dorn | Vocals |
| Matthew Greywolf | Guitar |
| Charles Greywolf | Guitar / Bass |
| Falk Maria Schlegel | Organ / Keyboards |
| Roel van Helden | Drums |
All names are the stage names the band itself publishes. Reference: Powerwolf Official Website (checked August 3, 2026).
Biography
Powerwolf is a German heavy and power metal band formed in 2003 in Saarbrücken, the capital of Saarland in the south-west of the country. The line-up is Attila Dorn (vocals), Matthew Greywolf (guitar), Charles Greywolf (guitar and bass), Falk Maria Schlegel (organ and keyboards) and Roel van Helden (drums). A church organ, choir-shaped stacked vocals, the trained voice of a singer who studied classical music, and lyrics that set werewolf folklore beside religious imagery: the band has used those three things without interruption since its first album, and over twenty years they have made it one of the largest metal acts in Europe.
It began with the two Greywolfs and the arrival of organist Falk Maria Schlegel. No singer could be found for some time, until a meeting in Sighișoara, Romania, with Attila Dorn, who was studying classical singing in Bucharest. Dorn moved to Saarbrücken and became the band's front man. Metal Blade released the first album, Return in Bloodred, on April 4, 2005. Lupus Dei followed in 2007 and, as its Latin title promises, put the wolf at the centre of the whole record; Bible of the Beast in 2009 introduced the short overture running straight into the first song, the album shape the band has kept ever since.
The fourth album, Blood of the Saints (July 29, 2011), was produced by Fredrik Nordström in Sweden and was the first with Dutch drummer Roel van Helden, who had joined that year. It reached No. 23 on the German albums chart — the band's first showing there. The turn came with the record after it. Preachers of the Night (July 19, 2013), the first for Napalm Records, entered the Official German Albums Chart at No. 1, and alongside the Wolfsnächte headline tours that began in earnest the same year, Powerwolf became a German headline act.
Blessed & Possessed (2015) optimised that style for the stage, and The Sacrament of Sin (2018) brought in Jens Bogren as producer and folded orchestra and choir into the structure of the songs themselves. It reached No. 1 in Germany, and one of its tracks, "Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend," became the furthest-travelling song the band has written. Call of the Wild (2021) and Interludium (2023) followed, and the tenth album, Wake Up the Wicked (July 26, 2024), gave Powerwolf its fourth No. 1 on the Official German Albums Chart.
In 2026 the band released Wildlive (Live at Olympiahalle), recorded at the closing show of the 2024 Wolfsnächte tour at the Olympiahalle in Munich, and took a fifth German No. 1 with it. On October 25 that year Powerwolf appears on day two of Full Metal Japan 2026 - Powered by Wacken at Pia Arena MM in Yokohama, on a bill with Angra (featuring Kiko Loureiro and Edu Falaschi), Pretty Maids, Hibria and Loudness.
How the Band Sounds
What holds Powerwolf's music together is melody and ritual rather than any contest of technique. Falk Maria Schlegel's organ is not accompaniment but a second singer: it shares the melody with Attila Dorn's voice and takes the lead through the instrumental passages. The riffs sit at mid-tempo with little ornament, which leaves room for very large choruses that build elevation by repetition. Few songs win on speed. Every one of them is cut so that a room can sing it back the first time it hears it.
The words and the imagery work by putting the sacred and the bestial on one stage. Mock-liturgical Latin, saints and witch trials, werewolf legend — and the handling has grown more specific over the years: "Werewolves of Armenia" takes Armenia, "Armata Strigoi" Romania, "Beast of Gévaudan" eighteenth-century France and "Blood for Blood (Faoladh)" Ireland, a song per tradition. At the same time the band does not flinch from a blunt pun — "Resurrection by Erection," "Sacramental Sister" — and the coexistence of solemnity and mischief is the temperature it works at. On stage the same world is built out in full, with church-shaped scenery and a raised organ platform, under tour names like Wolfsnächte and The Metal Mass.
Detailed Member Profiles
Attila Dorn (Vocals) — A singer who studied classical voice in Romania. His baritone-based delivery and his bearing as a kind of officiating priest sit at the centre of the band.
Matthew Greywolf (Guitar) — Lead guitar, one of the principal writers, and a hand in the direction of the band's artwork.
Charles Greywolf (Guitar / Bass) — Plays guitar and bass, and has carried much of the recording and sound side since the early years.
Falk Maria Schlegel (Organ / Keyboards) — The player who put the sound of a church organ at the core of the band. Live, he works from a raised organ platform, which makes him a visual anchor of the style as well.
Roel van Helden (Drums) — From the Netherlands. He joined in 2011 and has played on every album from Blood of the Saints onward.
Discography
| Year | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Return in Bloodred | First album (April 4 / Metal Blade) |
| 2007 | Lupus Dei | Second album (May 7 / Metal Blade) |
| 2009 | Bible of the Beast | Third album (April 24 / Metal Blade) |
| 2011 | Blood of the Saints | Fourth album (July 29 / No. 23 in Germany) |
| 2012 | Preaching at the Breeze | Video release |
| 2013 | Preachers of the Night | Fifth album (July 19 / No. 1 in Germany / first for Napalm) |
| 2015 | Blessed & Possessed | Sixth album (July 17) |
| 2016 | The Metal Mass – Live | Live release (July 27 in Japan / July 29 in Europe) |
| 2018 | The Sacrament of Sin | Seventh album (July 20 / No. 1 in Germany) |
| 2019 | Metallum Nostrum | Covers album (January 11 / the 2015 bonus disc issued separately) |
| 2020 | Best of the Blessed | Compilation (July 3) |
| 2021 | Call of the Wild | Eighth album (July 16) |
| 2022 | The Monumental Mass – A Cinematic Metal Event | Video release (physical formats July 8) |
| 2023 | Interludium | Ninth album (April 7) |
| 2024 | Wake Up the Wicked | Tenth album (July 26 / No. 1 in Germany) |
| 2026 | Wildlive (Live at Olympiahalle) | Live release (No. 1 in Germany) |
METAL BOOST carries an individual page for each of the ten studio albums listed above.
Japan
Powerwolf's records have been distributed in Japan throughout the band's career, and the 2016 live release The Metal Mass – Live appeared there on July 27, ahead of the European date. On October 25, 2026 the band plays day two of Full Metal Japan 2026 - Powered by Wacken at Pia Arena MM in Yokohama, on a bill with Angra (featuring Kiko Loureiro and Edu Falaschi), Pretty Maids, Hibria (featuring Iuri Sanson and Renato Osorio) and Loudness — a chance to see a German headline act's staging in Japan.
Conclusion
Powerwolf is a band that took a deliberately limited set of tools — church organ, choir, and the stories of werewolves and saints — and spent twenty years finding out how to repeat them without going flat. The vocabulary was already assembled on Return in Bloodred; everything since has enlarged it rather than replaced it, and the result is a group that reaches No. 1 in Germany again and again. The ten studio albums read as chapters of one world, and any of them works as a way in.
Trivia
Five names appear on the band's official members page: Attila Dorn on vocals, Matthew Greywolf on guitar, Charles Greywolf on bass and guitar, Falk Maria Schlegel on organ and Roel van Helden on drums. An organist listed as a full member is the distinguishing feature of that line-up.
By the band's own account on their site, Blessed & Possessed and The Sacrament of Sin are both gold-certified records, and the single from the latter, "Demons Are A Girl's Best Friend," is a platinum hit.
The lyrics on Call of the Wild line up monsters from various folklores. "Beast of Gévaudan" takes the legendary predator said to have terrorised southern France in the mid-eighteenth century; "Varcolac" takes the wolfish demon of Romanian folklore; and "Blood for Blood (Faoladh)" summons the Irish relative of the moon-worshipper we call the werewolf.
On 20 May 2026 POWERWOLF announced a Japanese date on their official site: they would headline FULL METAL JAPAN in Yokohama on 25 October — the first time the band has ever performed in Japan. The announcement notes that they had spent years watching the passion and unending support of their Japanese audience from a distance.
The individual member pages on the official site each record the first album that person bought, and the pattern is hard to miss. Matthew Greywolf: Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind. Falk Maria Schlegel: Iron Maiden's Live After Death. Roel van Helden: Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark. Three of the four who answer name Iron Maiden, each a different record. The fourth, Attila Dorn, names Scorpions' Lonesome Crow.
The member pages also ask for the best POWERWOLF show, and one name recurs: Wacken Open Air in 2022. Matthew Greywolf writes that headlining it was priceless. Falk Maria Schlegel says it is hard to pick, then names two — Wacken 2022 and Munich 2024. Roel van Helden's answer is Hellfest 2023.
POWERWOLF are a German band. What they built on is heavy, solemn sound with catchy melody, white face paint, and a dramatic conception that moves between English, German and Latin. Sources disagree on when they formed: BARKS gives 2003, while their current label, Napalm Records, describes the band as having begun in 2004 as an unconventional project.
The band's slogan is METAL IS RELIGION. Their approach is to drive heaviness and aggression, melody, drama and religiosity all at once, as a single thing.
Albums
The tenth studio album and Powerwolf's fourth German No. 1 — choir and organ intact, every song routed to its chorus by the shortest path.
A ninth album that gathers new songs and unreleased material as a bridge to the next chapter, with a covers disc by befriended bands on the deluxe editions.
An eighth album that digs into werewolf legend country by country, with Jens Bogren and Joost van den Broek widening the band's sound another step.
The seventh album, produced by Jens Bogren and a German No. 1 — the turning point that produced “Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend.”
The sixth album, home to “Army Of The Night” and “Armata Strigoi” — blessing and possession set against each other in the most direct terms yet.
The fifth album and Powerwolf's first German No. 1 — the first record for Napalm, and the one that changed the band's standing.
The fourth album, produced by Fredrik Nordström and the first with drummer Roel van Helden — and the band's first German chart entry, at No. 23.
The third album folds organ and choir into the structure itself and produces “Werewolves of Armenia” — the point where the band's language settles.
“The wolf of God” — a second album that ties liturgical language to animal folklore head-on, and the home of “Prayer In the Dark.”
Church organ, an operatic voice and straight-driving riffs: the debut on which Powerwolf's style is already assembled.