Wolves in the Throne Room:Celestial Lineage

8.2 / 10 dropps
Southern Lord; 2011

Since their advent in 2002, Wolves in the Throne Room has been a cornerstone of American black metal. Started by brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver, they focused their version of black metal music into something they considered their own. In many interviews, Aaron Weaver has often tried to lay myths about Wolves in the Throne Room to rest. “We don’t play black metal,” he says, and by understanding the ire traditional black metal fans would feel toward their break from the genre, Weaver recognizes that they simply play their own version of it, heavily influenced by ambient and folk music.

Celestial Lineage, their fourth full-length album, is a culmination of a trilogy that began in 2007 with Two Hunters and continued in 2009 with Black Cascade. Like Two Hunters, Celestial Lineage features many ambient interludes—almost shoe-gaze—and like Black Cascade, there are traditional, stripped-down versions of black metal featuring only guitar, drums and shrieking vocals. This album seems like the proper next installment, and according to the band, possibly their last installment. Like a mash-up of the two previous albums, Celestial Lineage is a composition of what made the other two albums so intriguing.

For those familiar with the basics of the black metal genre, there are quite a few surprises on this album. More than just the simple blast beats of drums and distortion of guitars, this album incorporates chimes, synths and what sounds like ambient noises from nature–rustling leaves, tree branches in the wind. It’s not much of a surprise, considering the band lives on a self-sustained farmstead called Calliope where they grow their own organic food and are able to relatively live on their own terms. Still, they’re modern people, and they aren’t unfamiliar with today’s technology, which is apparent in the production value of Celestial Lineage. Every piece, from the tremolo guitars to the beautiful vocal accompaniment of Jessika Kenney, flows easily and naturally from one song to the next. And rather than bombarding their listeners with four lengthy tracks like the last two albums, this time around they give the listener a few breaks in between with some shorter ambient tracks, filled with a cappella choruses, harps and even organs.

Stylistically and thematically, Wolves in the Throne Room remain true to how you might expect them to act. Nature and mysticism are the 101 of their themes, as they often cite animals, weather, plants and ancient societies. In “Thuja Magus Imperium,” one of their longer more traditional black metal tracks, Nathan weaver cries out, “Night-born songs descend by moonlight / A rain of jewels, Calliope sings.” It’s a reference to Greek mythology’s muse of epic poetry–Calliope. And then on “Woodland Cathedral,” after chimes and synth introduce Jessika Kenney’s otherworldly voice, she softly lets the lyrics spill out of her mouth, as if another force is channeling her. “In the place of abundant life and constant song / Through pores of trees, spoke ancient times,” she sings. It’s a testament to the band’s desire to remove themselves from the aspects of the modern world, which they feel hinders them and all mankind.

Wolves in the Throne Room’s concept may seem haughty and self-absorbed to any casual passerby. But upon close inspection, the band’s sincerity and ambition is evident by the grand size of the album. With every aspect of the instruments, vocals and ambient noises, their goal is to be gigantic and powerful in the ears of the listener. It’s interesting that their worldview is so organic and peaceful, even as the wall of sound from the blast beats and tremolo picking hit you and surround you like a sea of sound.

And while the concept of the album seems to merge Two Hunters and Black Cascade into a one-stop-shop, it does sometimes feel redundant. Many moments of the album will have long-time fans thinking that they’re just listening to one of the two previous albums rather than a brand new one altogether. But by the end of the last track, as the layered and distorted guitars suddenly stop 48 seconds before the true end of the album and you hear nothing but a distant wind, you feel as though you’ve experienced something classic. A definitive end to a trilogy, a canon in its own right.

–Robert Miller