Wolves in the Throne Room

[Mithrandir]

I haven't seen any discussion of this band (Wolves in the throne room) here, but they seem to be making some amount of waves in the "US black metal" scene. Has anyone here had a listen to them, and are they worth a download? Anything worthwhile in their content, or are they just the new wave of "hip, Ulveresque posers?"

[Necrolust]

They are hip indeed. They openly espouse a "completely organic sort of lifestyle" which would normally be a plus, but the music itself is just typical bland USBM with nothing to say.

LOL at the wordfilter. Not all U - S - B - M is "emo."

[wEEman33]

I haven't heard any of their records, but I saw them live with jesu a few weeks ago and they were very boring.

Their music is basically nonstop tremolo riffing/blastbeats with occasional ambient interludes, none of which are particular creative or well-executed.

I have a feeling they would not be getting any press at all was it not for the fact that the band lives in the woods somewhere in the northwest US and plays concerts in caves/forests.

[kontinual]

Anything on Southern Lord is guaranteed hipster-bait and is best avoided unless you wear Chuck Taylors and spend significant free time in modern art museums.

[K. Sear]

Anything on Southern Lord is guaranteed hipster-bait and is best avoided unless you wear Chuck Taylors and spend significant free time in modern art museums.

Not far off the mark but I will admit that I have enjoyed one or two releases from them.  

Wolves... however are best avoided.  I saw them live about a month ago and wasn't impressed.  I got the impression they wished they were Weakling, only they lack the creativity.  I may be off base with that judgement, but I definitely didn't feel the desire to puruse their work any further.

[GreatBlackJoy]

Necrolust, I'm glad you identified it as emo. In terms of melody, the timing of the vocals, and the whole quality that it evokes, it is thoroughly emo.

This really is hipster friendly music. It's stripped of everything aggressive and adventurous in spirit. Instead it's a just an endless whine.

Also, they don't exactly live "in the woods". They live a five minute walk away from Evergreen University in Olympia Washington. It's not exactly raw wilderness.

[Septicemia]

So far the only worthwhile BM band to come out of the US espousing something akin to naturalism is I Shalt Become.

[meganerd]

They live a five minute walk away from Evergreen University in Olympia Washington

Oh fuck, you've got to be kidding..  Are they on K Records?  Riot Grrrl black metal?  I cannot stand Olympia; it's even worse than Bellingham...  

I have to admit though that the poser in me is intriegued by the whole concerts in the woods thing.  Do they play in those old mine shafts out by Newcastle and Black Diamond or something?  To my knowledge, there are very few if any real caves in the northwest.  We don't have hardly an limestone bedrock out here.  But still, I'd probably go to a BM show in an old mine shaft, even if the band wasn't very good.

[Humanicide]

i find them to be satisfactory, although i wonder why they must insist on making such long songs. most of their ideas are used up about halfway through. shortening their songs would do them good, i think.

[Ageless_Stranger]

Oh fuck, you've got to be kidding..  Are they on K Records?  Riot Grrrl black metal?  I cannot stand Olympia; it's even worse than Bellingham...  

I have to admit though that the poser in me is intriegued by the whole concerts in the woods thing.  Do they play in those old mine shafts out by Newcastle and Black Diamond or something?  To my knowledge, there are very few if any real caves in the northwest.  We don't have hardly an limestone bedrock out here.  But still, I'd probably go to a BM show in an old mine shaft, even if the band wasn't very good.

You have quite a bit of magma shaft caves (forgot the technical name for them) which have long since been empty of volcanic activity.  I somehow doubt that a magma shaft would be big enough to hold a concert in, however.

[shadowmystic]

I guess I'm in the minority here but I thought they were pretty good, at least on their first album.  Pleasant ambient structures and strong emotional content, definately had some potential, I guess it could be seen as boring but I have a long enough attention span.

[meganerd]

You have quite a bit of magma shaft caves (forgot the technical name for them) which have long since been empty of volcanic activity.  I somehow doubt that a magma shaft would be big enough to hold a concert in, however.

Yeah I forget about the Ape Caves down by St. Helens.  I don't know of any others though; the central and northern Washington volcanoes haven't been particularly active in the last few thousand years, and any caves that did exist have long since collapsed.  If anyone wants to talk about the natural history of the northwest, I'm interested.  

[nAMELESShERETIC]

Anything on Southern Lord is guaranteed hipster-bait and is best avoided unless you wear Chuck Taylors and spend significant free time in modern art museums.

art museums indeed...i think that o'malley fella does a majority of southern lord's artwork, if i'm not mistaken. maybe he wants his work to be side by side with Marcel Duchamp.

[Fallibilis]

Their ambitions run far from their abilities. As someone here previously mentioned, their good ideas essentially could be summed up in a matter of minutes, yet they continue to drag on, either to appear to write epic compositions or simply because they don't have enough material to write more than a demo's length album.

Unless you are on dial-up, I don't see the problem with downloading them, but I would be wary.

[wEEman33]

And to that I would add that the actual "black metal" content within their works is very poor.

They are much better at crafting ambient passages, and I would much prefer them to explore that route than drawing out long passages of meandering, mundane tremolo-picked melodies.