Wolves In The Throne Room

Wolves in the Throne Room took shape in Olympia, Washington, when brothers Nathan and Aaron Weaver devised the project amid an Earth First! demonstration. The group fuses Cascadian eco-spiritual awareness with the core conventions of Scandinavian black metal—though their words reject the earlier scenes’ deliberate misanthropy, Satanism, and aggression—yielding an enormous, crushing, many-layered sound they term “transformative black metal.” Ritualistic drumming, stacked buzzing guitars, throbbing bass, and thick swathes of analog and digital synths underpin the mix of raw and polished vocals. Working out of a repurposed farm, the band issued the spectral Diadem of 12 Stars in 2006 before linking with Southern Lord. Nathan and Aaron later joined forces with producer Randall Dunn on Black Cascade (2009), Celestial Lineage (2011), and the self-released Thrice Woven (2017). After moving to Relapse, they delivered their first album for the label, the self-produced Primordial Arcana, in 2021 and followed it with the four-track EP Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge in 2023.

The lineup features vocalists and guitarists Rick Dahlin and Nathan Weaver alongside drummer Aaron Weaver. Their expansive black-metal pieces draw from protracted harsh winters, pagan myth, and Nordic acts such as Darkthrone, Windir, and Enslaved. After sharpening their approach on a pair of EPs in 2004 and 2005, the trio captured Diadem of 12 Stars in 2006 for Vendlus Records. Two Hunters, released by Southern Lord in 2007, deepened the ensemble’s already cavernous textures, while Black Cascade (2009) shifted toward a tighter, more physical black-metal stance. Celestial Lineage (2011) reconciled those tendencies into their most polished statement yet. In 2014 the band launched Celestite on their Artemisia imprint, an instrumental counterpart to Celestial Lineage that added dense, synth-led horizons to their growing sonic range. Following extensive worldwide touring, the group returned to the studio and emerged in September 2017 with the five-song Thrice Woven, again on Artemisia. Anna Von Hausswolff supplied guest vocals on two tracks, among them the nine-and-a-half-minute lead single and video “Born from the Serpent’s Eye” and “Mother Earth, Father Ocean.” Steve Von Till of Neurosis contributed the spoken-word opening to “The Old Ones Are with Us.” WITTR joined Relapse in 2020; Primordial Arcana, the ensuing full-length, was recorded, produced, and visually designed entirely in-house, underscoring the band’s enduring interest in pagan spirituality and the natural world. Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge appeared in 2023.