Wolves in the Throne Room

What does everybody think about their lates album, Malevolent Grain?

I was a fan of Two Hunters for a while, but the fascination wore off because WITTR are a bunch of trendy indie rock hippies masquerading as a Black Metal band and that is as far as their musical ideas reach. Specifically, it's a studied combination of indie rock, emo punk, crustcore and doom metal, most notably borrowing from Skepticism and Satyricon. It makes itself obvious in the protest rock style of clearly identifying what it complains about --Genetically Modified crops-- and makes that topic safe by putting it in the same Good and Evil game that Christianity likes to play, where moral absolutes are used to control the masses so no one has to think. But, isn't that the opposite of what Black Metal originally stood for? Sure, there are black metal technique additions, but the spirit is mournful and poignant in that simple way that rock music makes you see a "I love her, but can't have her, because she's no good for me, but the sex is great" dual binary complexity to life. Unlike great art, this album never creates the chiasmus, where the opposite pairs recombine and a truth is discovered. Wolves in the Throne Room carefully study their quarry and put together a compilation of what has worked for indie rock tinged black metal for the past decade or so, but in doing so, they somehow lose their soul, which is borne out in the music that wanders yet not only never arrives but never decides where it wants to go -- it wallows in its opposition, like a surly priest fulminating in frustration beneath a rotting church.

.I have never heard it but here is a courtisy bump! I listen to slayer, mercyful fate/king diamond, obituary, old and new album metallica, some cannibal corpse, old iron maiden, exodus, testament, old black sabbath, old anthrax, old megadeth, old deicide, old godsmack.

While I agree with the sentiment that WitTR are a bunch of hippies who are primarily concerned with pushing their pseudo-political views on us, the listener, I still found the album to be enjoyable on a musical level, much like Diadem of 12 Stars and Two Hunters, as well as the demo, and all the other bands who have the wall-o'-black-metal-noise going on, like Xasthur and Anaal Nathrakh. I am not a fan of the hippie bulls***, as I stated earlier, but to me, Lyrics are not a make-or-break thing with a lot of black metal, seeing as how some of the greatest BM bands can't write lyrics worth a s*** (Emperor comes to mind, especially on ITNE). As for the debate on whether or not WitTR are technically "black metal" or not due to their lyrical themes, one must define what black metal means and stands for, especially in this day and age. Does it explicitly have to deal with the BM ethos, or is it more an identifier of the sound? I mean, I consider Summoning black metal, as well as Arcturus, but their lyrical content and message does not hold true with traditional Black Metal. Fenriz perhaps put it best, saying that "One can analyze a piece of music and deduct that it is Black Metal, but Black Metal is a feeling. And that feeling cannot be analyzed."

I would try to deduce where WitTR was trying to go with this album, but these days, I don't think they know where they're going, either. Still a good listen, though.

I think every genre of Metal and heavy music had a central philosophy (Punk was all about the anti-social attitude that "I'll do whatever the f*** I want to just to piss off the social elite", and Speed Metal warned of the destruction of Mankind at it's own hands) and the philosophy of Black Metal has always been that the law of nature rules the Earth and that there is no good and evil in nature.