Bible of the Beast

Bible of the Beast, released by Metal Blade on April 24, 2009, is Powerwolf's third studio album. It is the record that adopted the short overture — here “Opening: Prelude to Purgatory” — running straight into the first song, and every album since has kept that shape. “Raise Your Fist, Evangelist” opens on a marching rhythm and a large chorus, delivering the inversion its title proposes. “Werewolves of Armenia” draws on Armenian werewolf lore and pairs an Eastern European mode with a straight-line riff; it became one of the band's signature songs and was re-recorded in a new version in 2020. “Moscow After Dark” moves the setting to Russia, and “Resurrection By Erection” shows the side of Powerwolf that is not afraid of a blunt pun. From this album on, Falk Maria Schlegel's organ is treated as a second singer: it shares the melody with Attila Dorn's voice and takes the lead in the instrumental passages. On “Panic in the Pentagram” and “Seven Deadly Saints,” the choir is not ornament but the frame the song is hung on. Anyone tracing how Powerwolf reached its present style will find the fork here.