Year: 2021
Total Time: 49:36
Label: Relapse Records
The Cascade Mountains are located in the western tip of North America, starting north of British Columbia, extending south to the states of Washington, Oregon, ending in northern California and the people of Washington have adopted the term Cascade Mountains as opposed to the usual term of the United States referred to as the North Cascades. Maybe you have heard -or even read- the term “Cascadian Metal”, a term that was given rather abusively to describe the growing volume of atmospheric or even straighter Black Metal bands from that area, with ancestors of the term being named AGALLOCH and WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM (from now on they will be written as WITTR for the sake of brevity). I will graciously ask for your understanding of this seemingly meaningless information, but I prefer to link a band’s music to its place of origin for a fuller understanding of the message they may want to convey to the listener.
Enough with the geography, let’s move on to the main course, the music. Watching WITTHR release the successor to the fantastic “Thrice Woven” of 2017, a real milestone for the atmospheric American Black Metal and even more. As part of the tour to promote it, we had the good fortune to enjoy them live in February 2020 just before the first quarantine (future examination subject in History lessons) and together with VED BUENS ENDE they filled my batteries for the rest of the difficult quarantine months. The quarantine and the difficult situations seem to have benefited the brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver who during this time built their own Owl Lodge Studio, took the whole situation into their own hands with the result showing that they were right. Always operating as a strong duo, they hired various guitarists to act as a trio in the studio and for live performances they hired more musicians. For “Primordial Arcana ” they added the former guitarist of ALDEBARAN, Kody Keyworth, which I would characterize as a key move and I will explain that.
The core of WITTR music is always the guitar riff on which the rest of the music is built and integrated. The melodic line forms the dynamics of the image and with the addition of the vocals and drums the construction of the composition proceeds. Kody Keyworth added the slow, mournful, but also painfully beautiful, leads with a doom aesthetic which gave the atmosphere a new clear perspective. Mention should also be made of the wonderful, almost transcendental drumming of Aaron Weaver leaving it difficult to understand that the sound of the drums is natural and not a repetitive magnifying glass on the computer. So what do we have here? Relatively large compositions, their trademark, gradual, progressive and dynamic development of themes framed by the hard vocals of Nathan Weaver and a fascinating as well as mystical sense of Nature and the countryside, a major element that automatically differentiates them from the rest of Black Metal sound (that uses religion as a means of expression). But despite the naturalistic and not so pagan aesthetics of “Primordial Arcana”, EMPEROR and DIMMU BORGIR (especially those on the keys and the atmosphere) are present and are a great source of inspiration.
From the very first single “Mountain Magick ”, WITTR’s intentions were revealed for creating aggressive music, but also an atmospheric folk approach with loans from Post Rock, especially with the use of the acoustic guitar, until the end of the orchestra ” Eostre ». The “Primordial Arcana ” I dare say is the most personal, thorough and fully balanced release of WITTR to date with the combination of primitive, earthly power and a clean, clear, not at all suffocating, atmosphere. It follows all the norm of the previous albums, adds ingredients, but at the same time remains recognizable being brutal, ruthless, hard and melodic, traveling, mystical, transcendental. Epic melancholy in a superlative degree and a package that has almost everything, primitive Black Metal for the most primitive elitists, melodies and atmosphere sensual as well as mystical. Therefore, a question pierces my brain: Is “Primordial Arcana” Black Metal addressed to non-Black Metal listeners?
At the end of the presentation I decided to take a trip to a nearby high mountain to retire for a while alone with my thoughts. I hiked, crossed cliffs and ravines, crossed crystalline torrents and streams with clear water, filled my hermit crab and sat down to rest on one of the peaks. With “Primordial Arcana” playing on the headphones, completely isolated from the rest of the world, together with the different climate, the icy air and the crystal clear atmosphere, the answer to the question that tormented me was given.
Rating: 7.5/10
Editor:Dimos Karadimos
Related Link: WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM – Official Page
