Artist: Wolves In The Throne Room
Country: USA
Label: Relapse Records / Century Media
Formats: 12″ EP / CD EP
Year: 2023
As with many bands that are dealt with a certain hype in their careers this phenomenon comes with a lot of attention, nice tours, pretty decent sales and… some unadulterated hatred. Usually coming from people who have problems with innovation or perhaps even just plain jealousy. Anyway, this fate also befell Wolves In The Throne Room, the American rising Black Metal star of the second half of the 00’s. Personally, I was very impressed by the band’s early works, but gradually lost interest. Which, by the way, was unrelated to the dislike from the “Black Metal elite” at the time, where I must admit that the conjugation to Wolves In The Bathroom from the “Fuck Off-list” in Anal Blasphemy’s ‘Perversions Of Satan’ album did bring a chuckle…
Despite having lost sight of the band for a good number of years, my interest was rekindled in 2021. It was the beautiful artwork of ‘Primordial Arcana’ that caught my attention and enticed me to press the play button. Losing interest in the band clearly had more to do with shifting my personal tastes than with the band’s direction, because while the band’s sound certainly cannot be called static, that seventh album did not sound at all miles away from what I loved about 2006’s ‘Diadem Of 12 Stars’ or ‘Two Hunters’ from a year later.
Quite the opposite, in fact. The band’s main business is still an Atmospheric sort of Black Metal that has been heavily dragged into those Folk and nature inspired melodies. Listening to ‘Diadem Of 12 Stars’ now some 17 years after its initial release and this newest EP only makes clear the band has reached new levels of song writing skills. Especially in terms of production and sound the band has taken huge steps forward, allowing the more balanced mix between the Black Metal and more atmospheric/folky passages to shine and sound more powerful. The nice and tremolo-picked riffs go hand in hand with the beautifully crafted layers of synthesizers and acoustic guitars, together creating whirlwinds of overwhelmingly impressive melodies and catchy hooks.
On ‘Crypt Of Ancestral Knowledge’ the bands shows itself from its most coherent side. At least, when it comes to the first two tracks/the A-side of the EP. While this new EP holds some of the band’s most intense compositions from the most recent part of their career, the second half is filled with two tracks (of the same length as the first two) of instrumental music that is best described as Atmospheric Folk music. It has some influences of early 00’s Dark Ambient and Ritual/Tribal Music. For one part of the listeners this might be a total let down, while for the others it might seem the most appropriate ending of the first two tracks, which now even feel more as the ultimate synthesis of the band’s two prime musical elements.
Wolves In The Throne Room has been around for two decades, pushed the boundaries of the genre and initiated a whole new musical movement. Okay, not to everyone’s joy, and regardless of whether you like that so-called “Cascadian Black Metal”, it is clear that the band has made its mark and this 2023 EP, ‘Crypt Of Ancestral Knowledge’ is a release that feels like a musical culmination of that innovative endeavour.
