Wolves In The Throne Room were cultivated in 2003, and graced us with their first studio album in the year 2006, namely ‘Diadem of 12 Stars’. This release has subsequently gone on to become a genre defining classic amongst the black metal hordes.

Wolves In The Throne Room re-imagine black metal, and have certainly created their own niche in the overflowing world of the black arts, presenting to us, their masterpieces’, as odes to rain storms, synonymous with the pacific northwest.

Originating from Washington WITTR were formed by brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver. To date, they have unleashed 5 monumental full length albums, 2 live albums and one EP, as well as performing live, candle lit, rituals which are masterpieces in themselves, and immerse the gathered masses into a world like no other, swathed in atmosphere and blazing, furious black metal in equal measures.

Wolves In The Throne Room are now ready to unleash another battery to the senses, in the form of the majestically, grand opus ‘Thrice Woven’.

Opening track ‘Born From A Serpents Eye’, starts the listener on a journey through what sounds like the gods slicing open  the heavens and lashing the enclosed tropical raindrops down upon us, which is a perfect back drop to the haunting lament by the Swedish angelic behemoth that is Anna Von Hausswolff. This all flawlessly intertwined in perfect harmony, with the rain drops setting the scene for the rest of the deliverance.

Next up is ‘The Old Ones Are With Us’ which opens up with a fire crackling in the back ground, in order to evoke thoughts and memories of springtime and nature, and this is all pulled together by Steve Von Till, of Neurosis fame, adding his voice to the proceedings.

The album then gathers pace in ‘The Bleak Angrboda’ and we are then opened up to an interlude ‘Mother Owl, Father Ocean’ which lends itself to a duet, which sees the return of Anna Von Hausswolff, with her vocal arrangement delivered to us in her native Swedish tongue, alongside the Turkish harpist Zeynep Oyku.

The whole journey is then tied off nicely with ‘Fires Roar In The Palace Of The Moon’ which is a classic black metal epic which leaves us with no question that this is Wolves in the throne room staying true to their roots, and giving us a hefty slice of atmospheric, Cascadian black metal in its rawest form .

(8/10 Phil Pountney)

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