Album Review: Wolves In The Throne Room - Primordial Arcana
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Back in 2010 and 2011, following the release of their third album, Black Cascade, Wolves in the Throne Room suddenly seemed to become the underground band everyone was name dropping or wearing on the backs of their jackets. The Washington State Black Metal ensemble found themselves at the forefront of the USBM scene and spear-heading a shift in the ideology of the genre.
In retrospect Black Cascade can be seen as the bridge between the old Wolves and the new, as the albums that followed: 2011’s Celestial Lineage and 2017’s Thrice Woven began to blend a more folky, earthy approach to the music and, whereas Diadem of Twelve Stars and Two Hunters were unashamedly based around the blast-beat, Wolves later works saw them moving in a more – dare I say – progressive direction.
So, discounting the experimental Celestite, that brings us to album number six: Primordial Arcana; a seven-track continuation of the direction begun back in 2011 and, in many ways, the cumulation of the ideas put forth since.
All Wolves’ albums evoke the land from which the band hails and, like their Scandinavian counterparts and influences, inspires the work itself. The use of ancient horns, of wind and fire and otherworldly chanting conjure images of ancestral forests and imposing mountain ranges. These are, of course, found in abundance in the Pacific North-West, as snow-filled forests are in rural Norway.
The brothers Weaver remain the key personnel and the combination of Nathan’s guitar and Aaron’s drum provides Wolves’ signature sound. In the past, Aaron’s drumming has been criticised for being one-dimensional but no such disparagement can be levelled here. Mountain Magick has the blast-beats you would expect, but they are mixed with more nuanced percussion; Through Eternal Fields is built on the foundation of slow, repetitive rhythms as the bass drum rattles like incoming thunder.
Not to be outdone by his sibling, Nathan turns in a similarly nuanced guitar performance. He and fellow six-stringer, Kody Keyworth, compliment his brother by playing soaring, life affirming riffs yet not being afraid to roll their sleeves up and get their hands dirty when a filthy black metal progression is called for. It might well be me hearing something that wasn’t there, but I’m sure there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Iron Maiden motif hidden within Spirit of Lightning.
Nathan’s voice is as varied as everything else on Primordial Arcana, with him switching between his usual delivery, to guttural and raw. We even get a whispered, near spoken word and haunting sighs; the epic, Masters of Rain and Storm has a multi-layered affect, while on Through Eternal Fields, bassist Galen Baudhuin adds a more melodic element to compliment Nathan’s broken-glass bellow.
Primordial Arcana sounds immense; the epic vistas and intense barrages of sound are clean and the gaps where the music is allowed to breath give the whole of the record a timeless quality. Additional sound effects, like howling wind, cracking flames or waves crashing at the foot of a cliff serve to supplement the feeling isolation and self-reflection.
Wolves in the Throne Room has always felt like a band whose music has deep emotional roots and once engaged you are drawn into a world of ageless forests and epoch-defying mountains. Primordial Arcana is, in my opinion, their best record since Black Cascade.
