Wolves in the Throne Room are one of the US black metal scene’s finest exports, and one of the most interesting black metal bands to be found anywhere in the world. They’re a band that manage to find the beauty in rock’s heaviest, filthiest sounding genre. The result is progressive, interesting black metal that remains loyal to the tropes of the genre, while colouring far enough outside the lines to make it fresh and interesting.
While their previous record – 2017’s ‘Thrice Woven’ – is an incredible piece of work, at times it felt like four distinct 10-minute tracks, rather than a cohesive piece of work. That’s not an issue here. ‘Primordial Arcana’ is a cohesive piece of work, and one of their best and most beautifully realised projects yet; it’s a gloomy, bleak record that makes heavy use of synths to add character and flavour to the extremity of the music.
Opening track ‘Mountain Magick’ is a fairly straight-ahead black metal song, with all the sonics you’d expect from that genre, plus a few splashes of synth giving a hint of what’s to come. This song is very much in the minority. From the moment second track ‘Spirit of Lightning’ comes in, it’s clear that it’s a very different proposition, opening with a synth and medieval stringed instrument playing off against each other for around two minutes before giving way to white-hot brutality.
This use of synths makes for a black metal record that doesn’t just rely on blast beats, tremolo picking and shrieked vocals to have an impact (though there is plenty of all three). There are numerous moments where these sounds take a back seat in favour of much more melodic, atmospheric sound, using guitars and synths to great effect, as well as medieval instrumentation. Indeed, this instrumentation gives the album a distinctly European feel, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the band were from Northern Europe rather than their native Washington, USA.
The overall effect is that the heavier parts hit harder, while the more melodic sections offer memorable passages that make the record stand apart from its contemporaries. It would be wrong to call these sections catchy, but over repeated listens they get stuck in your head and form the primary melodies of the songs. ‘Underworld Aurora’ is perhaps the best example of this, a track that opens with two minutes of gloomy, atmospheric synth before giving way to black metal tremolo picking and vocals. The song is littered with synth callbacks to the intro, as well as heavier sections, resulting in a song that’s wonderfully balanced between melody and extremity.
Final track ‘Masters of Rain and Storm’, a 10-minute epic, pulls off a similar trick at the six minute mark. An acoustic guitar – backed by atmospheric synths – comes in, making you think the album is coming to an end, and then out of nowhere, the full band comes straight back in. The effect that this has, the first time you hear it, has to be experienced to be believed.
If you’re a fan of interesting, progressive music – whether you like black metal or not – you owe it to yourself to give this record a try. Prior to this record’s release, Wolves In The Throne Room had made a big name for themselves producing contemplative music inspired as much by progressive rock as it is by classic black metal. With ‘Primordial Arcana’, they’ve tightened their songwriting ever further and produced a cohesive record of real quality. This is certainly one of the best extreme metal records of 2021.
ASH BEBBINGTON