Wolves in the Throne Room - Thrice Woven

Wolves in the Throne Room make a predictable return to their atmospheric black metal sound.

Wolves in the Throne Room - "Angrboda"

Atmospheric black metal outfit Wolves in the Throne Room has released the epic centerpiece of its upcoming album, Thrice Woven. A slightly truncated version of "Angrboda" was premiered earlier last week by Adult Swim to coincide with the solar eclipse, but now here it is in all its glory. Thrice Woven is out September 22 via the band's Artemisia imprint.

Wolves In the Throne Room - Celestite

Wolves In the Throne Room come through with an electronic and ambient change of pace on this new record of theirs.

Wolves In the Throne Room- Celestial Lineage

On some level, I consider myself a fan of Wolves In the Throne Room: the Olympia, Washington black metal outfit. If I wasn't, I don't think I would have followed their exploits up until this point. I don't see myself quitting, but I wasn't as into Celestial Lineage as I thought I would be. It's not for lack of trying, or for a lack of ambition, though. Wolves In the Throne Room do their damnedest to makes this sound like a new record, throwing in more female vocals, harp, sound effects, and synthesizers.

The issue for me is that these songs sound a little so similar to what this band has been doing for its past three albums. The way these songs are written is just keeping this release from sounding, well, new to me.

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Wolves In the Throne Room- "Woodland Cathedral"

On September 13th, black metal experimentalists Wolves In the Throne room will be dropping a new album via Southern Lord: Celestial Lineage. And to be honest, I wasn't sure if I was gonna be looking to this one. I wasn't a fan of the band's output since 2008's Two Hunters, and it's mostly because the band had drained its sound of the atmospheric textures that made it so interesting in the first place. What makes the situation funniest is WITTR seemed to be jumping off the atmospheric black metal wagon as loads of unknown bands were jumping on.

But on the first track to drop from this forthcoming album, "Woodland Cathedral," I'm glad to see a lot of those ethereal elements are coming back. The female vocals that have been in use in previous tracks are coming out stronger on this song as well.

deafheaven- demo ‡ STREAM

The good people at AVERSIONONLINE turned me on to this California metal act, and I'm not completely sure what to make of 'em. They seem a little too technical to be simply labeled as black metal, but they do have that harsh and atmospheric sound popularized by groups like Wolves In the Throne Room.

They've got a four-track demo sitting on their Bandcamp page right now, which you can grab for the fantastic price of 10 cents. Stream the demo below:

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