Wolves In The Throne Room

Age: 19+

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Cost: $20.00
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Since 2002, over the course of 5 studio albums and hundreds of live performances, Wolves in the Throne Room have refracted Black Metal through their own unique Cascadian prism. The resulting essence is music that is intimately linked to the wild lands of the Pacific Northwest.

Their songs explore the hidden world of magic that one accesses through dreams, visions and music. As the relentless pulse of the drums merges with seemingly infinite layers of guitar, an ocean-deep soundscape coalesces. Time slows down, a portal opens and the blazing metal riffs collapse and shift into a dirge that invokes a misty otherworld. Their lyrics and visual imagery explore death, ancientness and apocalypse.

Aaron and Nathan Weaver, the core members of WITTR, employ crystalline Black Metal, crushing Funeral Doom, otherworldly psychedelic dark ambient soundscapes and lilting folk passages. Their pioneering sound has expanded the boundaries of underground Metal in ways that have been both bold and influential.

Their first full length LP - the raw, analog Diadem of the 12 Stars (2006, re-issued in 2016) - was recorded by the duo and second guitarist Rick Dahlin on a shoestring budget at Louder Studios in San Francisco by Tim Green (Nation of Ulysses). It features guest vocalists Jamie Myers (Hammers of Misfortune and Dino Sommese (Asunder / Dystopia).

In 2007 the band signed with Southern Lord and released Two Hunters, the start of a loose trilogy and their first collaboration with producer Randall Dunn also known for his work with Earth, Boris, SUNN 0))) and Bjork/Omar Souleyman. Two songs on the album are graced by the voice of Persian classical vocalist Jessika Kenney. Two Hunters expanded the sonics and aesthetics of Black Metal by presenting a unique and fully-realized reinterpretation of the genre.

The four tracks on their next album Black Cascade (2009) are raw and stripped-down. The band was gearing up for extensive tours of the United States and Europe and they wanted to record an album that focussed on guitar, drums and vocals, rather than studio explorations. Veteran underground musician Will Lindsay replaced Rick Dahlin on guitar for these sessions and the accompanying EP Malevolent Grain. The album artwork for Black Cascade featured intricate photographic tableaus that the band created in nearby Cascade mountains.

Completing the trilogy was 2011’s Celestial Lineage. Composed entirely by the two Weavers, it featured their widest array of collaborators including Aaron Turner (Isis, Sumac, Old Man Gloom) and the return of Jessika Kenney. With Celestial Lineage, the band moved into a more expansive and visionary territory. Their approach to arrangement remained intact, but the guitars were now interwoven with a star-lit pulse emanating from a bank of analog synthesizers. For this release, the band worked with photographer Ali Scarpulla to create dimension-bending images in the Olympic mountains and around the band’s Olympia studio

Considering Celestial Lineage the natural end of an era for the band, they wound down touring and retreated from public life in early 2012 to concentrate on non-musical endeavors.

In 2014 they returned quietly, launching their own label, Artemisia, in order to take complete creative control of their art & business dealings. Their first release on their new label was Celestite, a instrumental ambient companion piece to Celestial Lineage. The album used elements hidden in the atmosphere of Celestial Lineage as a starting point to craft a soundscape that is only loosely connected to their familiar sound, yet is still unmistakably the work of Wolves in the Throne Room

They are currently working on new material (their heaviest and darkest in some time) & will tour the Eastern United States in September 2016
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