American black metal part III: Lurkers in the woods

We return, once again, to the postmodern wasteland that is the United States to glance upon one of the darkest of the black pearls, to ever be unearthed from the deep forrests of Olympia.

This is, unquestionably, my all time favorite blackmetal band, and one of my all time favorite bands as a whole; Wolves In The Throne Room. What I offer onto you here is nothing less than five releases of almost unparalleled intensity, ferocity and beauty, ranging form blasting, driven blackmetal in the vein of early Burzum, to ambient parts bringing an otherworldly quality into the mix. The releases will follow in chronological order.

We begin with "Diadem of 12 stars". The first song I ever heard by this band was "Face in a nighttime mirror part II", and it instantly had me hooked. Love at first listen if you will, nothing less. A brilliant record, teeming with the immense forces of nature and the mysticism of the wild. This is the record that truely opened my eyes to the american blackmetal scene.

Their next record was "Two hunters". Picking up where "Diadem of 12 stars" left off, its opens with an instrumental track that sets the mood just right. The first time I heard the third track "Cleansing", with the clean bit, sung by a woman in the intro, and the way they shift from this bit into the acctual song, my jaw instantly dropped to the floor. Please note that the version uploaded here is the vinyl version of "Two hunters", as it contains not four, but five tracks, the extra track called "To reveal". This record is split into two seperate links due to its lenght.

The "Live at Roadburn 2008" record captures the Wolves at their performance at the 2008 Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland. It contains three songs, namely "Vastness & sorrow" and I will lay my body down among the rocks and roots" from "Two hunters", as well as "Face in a nighttime mirror part I" from "Diadem of 12 stars".

The "Malevolent grain" EP, finds the Wolves doing a 12'' with one song on each side. Here they have bridged the experiments from the first two full lenghts with a woman singing in a clean voice, with the sheer frenzy of the songs that blaze forward like a forrestfire. It contains one song with Jamie Myers on vocals, and no screaming what so ever. The other song is the Wolves as we know them, as the aforementioned cleansing forrestfire.
Lastly is their brand spankin new release "Black cascade". There isnt much to say about this record, apart from the fact that the band continues to improve and develop their specific style on what is, in my humble opinion, yet another masterpiece. As with "Two hunters" I have had to split it into two parts.
Let me leave you with one closing remark: this is one of only a handfull of bands, that I have never heard anything less than amazing from. As such they are worthy of being one of the few bands that I simply cannot see ever doing anything that isnt good.

But turn off the lights in your dingy appartment, light twenty black candles, and listen to these songs with your headphones turned almost all the way up, and dream yourself away to the deep forrests of a world from before our so-called civilization destroyed the purity of nature.