Diadem of 12 Stars - Maelstrom
http://www.maelstrom.nu/ezine/review_iss45_3260.php
9.5/10
In the Woods'…epic Heart of the Ages and A Return to the Isle of Men; Weakling's timeless Dead as Dreams; Negura Bunget's wonderful N' Crugu Bradului; and now this, Diadem of 12 Stars by a completely unheralded band called Wolves in the Throne Room.
Wow.
Occasionally, once in a few years, emerges an album that redefines the verges of musical expression and pushes the boundaries a little farther into uncharted regions of human musical endeavor, where only the brave tread and those with vision and profound understanding of the human soul dare walk.
Diadem of 12 Stars is very much along the lines of Weakling's aforementioned Dead as Dreams' aesthetical likeness; epically long tracks, a sea of relentless, harmonious guitars interchanging with a harsher, sharper, searing tone of endless distortion upon distortion, and presiding overall heart tearing, lung crushing, suicidally demonic shrieks.
Occasionally, you'll hear an acoustic passage here and there, a wailing, lamented female's celestial voice, but most of the time the music is just bewitching guitar harmonies, layer on top of layer on top of layer; a thick veil of distortion and eerie, melodious craftsmanship. This music is apparently very simple and lacks any progressiveness, experimentation or virtuosity, but these wise musicians know how to convey melodies into one's heart in the most direct and chilling way possible. One cannot be left indifferent towards these sounds, for they capture the essence of what it's like to be human: faulty, fearful, fragile – then force-feed you with all that poison.
Diadem of 12 Stars is so intense that one can hardly sit through the whole hour continuously; it hammers the inside of the skull, it turns the innards, it makes the listener small and insignificant due to its abilities to embody the universe, the stars, nature itself, where we humans, do not always fit, or matter.
Diatem of 12 stars is what music – any music, metal music, black metal in particular – should be all about; refined emotion, transcendental and pure atmosphere. If these three infrastructural components appear, we can safely state that the assembly of sounds ahead – is music; music, as in muse, the spirit of invention, creation and aesthetical beauty.
This album is really a gem. It holds many treasures within, it strums on the spiritual strings in us all, and maybe, just maybe, puts us in our right place, in the right proportion within the great scheme of creation, deflating our enormous ego and self-esteem to nothingness in comparison to the vastness out there.
Diatem of 12 Stars is easily one of the best black metal releases of the year 2006. (9.5/10)
note by Roberto Martinelli: It’s the truth, and more. Not since Weakling (check out the review waaaayyy back in issue #1) has there been anything so... well, like Weakling. (Although I had forgotten about N Crugu Bradului). Black metal in general hasn’t been too relevant or worthwhile around Maelstrom HQ since the turn of the millennia, but Wolves in the Throne Room is the very rare exception to that rule. Oh, and by the way, Diadem... is light years better than the band’s demo CD that was in circulation around San Francisco for a little while. Good work! See ya at the "best of" list for 2006.