The Sacrament of Sin

The Sacrament of Sin, released on July 20, 2018, is Powerwolf's seventh studio album and its first to enter the Official German Albums Chart at No. 1. Jens Bogren produced it and Joost van den Broek handled the orchestral arrangements, and the difference in clarity and weight against everything before it is immediate. “Fire & Forgive” opens with a marching rhythm and a full choir. “Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend” follows, and its light organ figure and repeating chorus made it the band's furthest-travelling song. “Killers with the Cross” and “Incense & Iron” hold speed and melody together; “Stossgebet,” sung in German, darkens the record's middle. The title track moves at a measured pace, and “Where the Wild Wolves Have Gone” brings in the breadth of a ballad. From this album onward, orchestra and choir stopped being decoration for Powerwolf and became part of how the songs are built. The deluxe edition added a covers disc on which Epica, Battle Beast, Amaranthe and others played Powerwolf material — a marker of the band's changed standing. This is the point at which a well-liked German act became a European one.