Wino – Create Or Die

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · November 15, 2025

Wino is a solo project from the legendary doom and heavy metal/ rock merchant, Scott “Wino” Weinrich. His work of musical art is iconic from bands like The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand, Saint Vitus, Shrinebuilder, Place Of Skulls, Premonition 13, and many others. Last year he created the excellent Gilded Sorrow album with The Obsessed (review here). He has produced several solo recordings under the Wino moniker including: 2009’s Punctuated Equilibrium, 2010’s Adrift, 2012’s Heavy Kingdom, 2020’s Forever Gone, and his latest, 2025’s Create Or Die. Guest musicians playing on this record are Brian Costantino on drums and Fergal Scahill on bodhrán. Wino plays acoustic and electric guitars and vocals. The album is a good mix of both heavy distortion and lighter acoustic songs and contains ten tracks at forty five minutes long. Create Or Die was released on October 24th on Ripple Music.

“Anhedonia” opens Create Or Die with a heavy dose of blues-centric rock that has a southern feel to it. It’s a nice riff driven explosion of classic doom enhanced with Wino’s signature vocals. The second track might be my favorite. The banjo driven “New Terms” is a heavy country rock song at its finest. The dark tones are hammered with the acoustic guitar’s powerful strumming. Wino’s deep and almost haunting voice is another high point with this one.

“Carolina Fox” strikes next with the guitars amplified to deliver a classic and distinctive Wino song. I can’t help but think of the late great Spirit Caravan with the flow and riffage of this one. It definitely reminds me of that classic Wino era. “Never Said Goodbye” is a mellow and melancholy song in its own right. You can feel the emotion in Wino’s voice on that one. He then crushes us with “Hopeful Defiance”, a hard rocker with some electrifying guitar leads. It sounds like a rebellious rocker of a track. “U.S. Or Them” is another great song that has a simple and direct appeal. It conjures a pretty powerful message too. Wino is never shy about expressing his thoughts through his musical brilliance.

It’s totally amazing with the sheer number of excellent songs that the man has written in his illustrious career, in the heavy underground music scene. Wino continues to produce such high quality songs, like the basic acoustic and vocal only “Cold And Wrong”. It’s a remarkable song! He enters heavy cosmic psych rock territory with “Lost Souls Fly”, a mind altering voyage into the beyond. He then proceeds into a mellow but electrified number called “Bury Me In Texas”. It has an alt-country rock appeal with a bluesy overlay.

The final track is another fantastic acoustic rock piece called “Noble Man”. I love the minimalist approach in these stripped down and raw emotive tracks. I enjoy the mix of both styles and really, how can you go wrong with Wino playing on any recording. He is stoner rock royalty for good reason, an architect of the almighty riff and king of the acoustic doom. All hail, Wino is our savior.