Two Hunters
http://www.aquariusrecords.org/
Southern Lord snagged 'em. Good call, since Olympia, WA's Wolves In The Throne Room are one of the absolute best things that US Black Metal has got going right now. Sure there's lots of awesome, oxymoronically one-man "hordes" (Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar) but no offense meant, this is an actual band, one that you can go see live, y'know? And they slay. Firmly (and intentionally and worshipfully) in the tradition of the now legendary San Francisco epic black metal act Weakling, WITTR build the same sort of trance-inducing, technically tight, extended compositions (here, up to over 18 minutes in length) of unending grimness and sheer majestic, melancholic beauty.
Post-rock dynamics, classical-sounding female vocals, newagey synth drone, acoustic intros, and other more-prog-than-metal elements are utilized with ease, while the music, in all its ambient-stormclouds-pregnant-with-ominous-doom glory, is such that would waft and wail through the tall trees of the dark forest of black metal myth exclusively... a forest that these dwellers of the Pacific Northwest can easily conjure, living amidst dark primeval woods for real.
AQ customers of the black metal persuasion won't need much persuading, WITTR's previous record Diadem Of 12 Stars is one of our biggest black metal sellers already and this new album has been eagerly anticipated. And it's good. As if there was much doubt of that.
Packaged in a handsome and very sinister looking miniature lp-style gatefold sleeve, this cd is another stellar offering showing that these Wolves are in the Throne Room not as interlopers, but by divine (or, rather, diabolical) right of rule. Along with Bay Area bands like Ludicra, Leviathan, Asunder, and Hammers Of Misfortune, WITTR are leading the pack in putting the West Coast on the map as the home of avant-metal artistry, Nordically blackened or otherwise opposed to the norm.