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Title: Woodland cathedral
Format: Album track
Written by: Aaron and Nathan Weaver
Performed by: Wolves in the Throne Room
Genre: Black Metal
Taken from: Celestial Lineage
Year: 2011
Acclaim: n/a

Time to go for a band with wolves in the name rather than a song, and there are a few. I remember reviewing, I think it was, Two Hunters, probably for Metal Month at some point, and being mightily impressed with it. Over the course of three years of running Metal Month, I did gain a new appreciation for some Black Metal, not all – bands like Panopticon, Gehenna and Blut Aud Nord really spoke to me, and in screechy voices I had not expected to listen to, but I did – and so I don't have the kind of trepidation about listening to it that I would have had, say, three years ago, nearly four now. As it happens, I seem to have stumbled, in my patented Trollheart close-your-eyes-and-run-across-the-road method of choosing albums, upon what seems to be regarded as one of their best, or to put it in the words of critic Brandon Stousuy, “American Black Metal's idiosyncratic defining record of 2011”. Um, yeah. I'm assuming that means he likes it. Will I? Well, who knows, but it's just the one track I'm taking, and as most of the tracks are in the double-digit mark, I've chosen one that's only six.

I know WitTR tend to veer a little towards the more pagan side, as it were, of Black Metal, which is to say, they come down a little more on the hard, melodic manner of Pagan Metal as opposed to the breakneck, cursing and roaring of some other Black Metal I could name. This one certainly has dark medieval overtones, much more than the Rainbow song, with almost a kind of slow, doomy chant in the opening, female vocals of all things. Who by? Let me just check that. Oh. Jessika Kenney, apparently, an experimental vocalist whose bag is mostly Persian and Indonesian music. Indeed. Well she does well here. I'm pretty sure I can hear a church organ going, slow, heavy, muted percussion, not too much guitar, though it does come in later.

It's the kind of song that I would, were someone to tell me, scoff and say there's no way it's Black Metal, if my understanding of this wide and varied subgenre had not changed forever over the last few years. Far from being all about screeching maniacs and guitars played rather less expertly than a novice punk band in the late seventies, it's a deep, thoughtful, dark cornucopia of various styles, vocals, ideas and lyrics, and while you can certainly lump many Black Metal bands in the one category, others just refuse to be pushed into a box. Wolves in the Throne Room are one of those. Further listening definitely required.

Things I like about this :
1. Not your “standard” Black Metal song
2. Female vocals
3. Good use of the organ
4. Great ominous percussion
5. Very slow, almost more Doom Metal at times

Things I don't like about this:
Nothing, really

Rating: http://www.trollheart.com/wolfrat3.png

Still willing to take suggestions?

Destoyer 666 - Unchain the Wolves


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Time for something, to coin a phrase, completely different now...
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Title: “The Wolves, Act I and II”
Format: Album track
Written by: Justin Vernon
Performed by: Bon Iver
Genre: Folk
Taken from: For Emma, Forever Ago
Year: 2007
Acclaim: n/a

A band I tried to get into, or, I should I suppose say, an artiste, as it's the one guy, is Bon Iver. He gets a lot of love here in the forum, but when I tried his self-titled second album, while I didn't hate it, it sort of left me with an overwhelming feeling of “So what?”, the same kind of impression I had after listening to another proclaimed god here, the late Eliott Smith. Just didn't get it. Good, yes, but just that. I listened to Newton Faulkner and liked his album, but I wasn't suddenly possessed by an urge to tell everyone how great it was (it isn't; it's okay) whereas certain people here seem to think both these people are something really special. So maybe I just missed the boat. In either case, this is from Vernon's debut album, and again while I've no intention of listening to the whole thing now, it might be interesting to see if anything clicks on this one that failed to on my previous outing into the man's work.

The background to the creation of the album is interesting though. Having become disillusioned with being a songwriter, and also falling ill, Vernon spent time in his father's log cabin in Wisconsin and hunted for his food. Here he began to compose melodies, and later to add lyrics, and though initially reluctant to make an album, pressure and encouragement from family and friends told, and he was quickly signed, releasing his debut album. Given that he did hunt, we can I guess assume that this song came from personal experience, or if not, was at least informed by his attempt to communicate with nature and shut out the hurly-burly of the world.

The first thing I'm reminded of is early Eagles, with the multitracked vocals (I'm pretty sure that's just him singing but it sounds like a choir or at least that he has backing vocalists). Nice slow acoustic guitar, kind of stopping and starting, almost interchanging with the vocals: when one is working the other stops. Mostly. Quite melancholy, which you'd expect, given that he has just broken up with his girlfriend and returned home, having lost interest in music, in just about everything. Guitar and voice meshing a little more now, perhaps this is “Act II”? Hard to know, as it all flows together. Guitar getting more insistent and louder, but not drowning out the vocals, nor ever in any danger of doing so. A lot of emotion and heartache coming through, especially at the end. Very raw. Sort of slight gospel overtones to the music too. Not bad. Still not convinced though.

Things I like about this :
1. Vocal is very good, very warm yet harsh, and given that it's only him it sounds like a lot more
2. Eventual convergence between vocal and guitar works well
3. A lot of emotion in the song

Things I don't like about this:
1. I feel it's hard to understand the falsetto vocal; I don't know what he's singing
2. The end part, where it all stops then comes back up again seems to me to be a little superfluous. Maybe that's Act II?


Rating: http://www.trollheart.com/wolfrat3.png

Back from the dead eh? Welcome back bastard, I missed you.

Wolves, you say?

I'll check it out. Am I likely to regret it?
Thanks man. You need to improve your aim.
Let the Dad Jokes flow forth! :laughing:
Ah yes, but not in Sheepskin. Well, unless you can recommend me a track I wouldn't hemorrage through and is less than a day long...
:shycouch:

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Title: “My tangerine dream”
Format: Album track
Written by: Andrew Stockdale
Performed by: Wolfmother
Genre: Hard rock
Taken from: New Crown
Year: 2014
Acclaim: n/a

I for some reason always assumed Wolfmother were a metal band – well, they sound like it, don't they? But apparently they're not. And that's all I know about them. Reading up, I see they've been compared to the greats like Zep and Sabbath, and now I look, I see the tag Heavy Metal is present, so maybe they are. Who knows? This is, as if you couldn't guess, my first experience of this band, so let's see what they have. I've chosen the track above more or less at random, as indeed the album has been chosen arbitrarily, although the veiled reference to Chris Franke's seminal psych/prog band of the seventies did, I admit, swing my choice a little.

Well that certainly sounds very seventies, the guitar kind of fuzzy, and even the vocal is quite Ozzyesque, so I can see the comparisons to Sabbath being somewhat valid, as well as those to the sort of Robert you put in a pot and water to see him grow. Kind of laidback in its way, with the guitar screeching riffs here and there, then a nice solo before the vocal comes back in. Perhaps a little bland, but not bad. Like the guitar buildup in around the fourth minute. Oh wait, it's stopped completely and now here's an acoustic, slow guitar with phased effects (?) and a much different vocal, almost like the late great Johnny Cash. Weird. But good.

Things I like about this :
1. Guitar is good, powerful without taking over too much
2. Vocal is a little derivative but engaging
3. Acoustic guitar at the end is nice and unexpected

Things I don't like about this:

1. The Johnny Cash vocal at the end does not work for me
2. The constant stabs of riffs after each “My tangerine dream” kind of irritates me
3. The reprise is kind of pointless really.

Rating: http://www.trollheart.com/wolfrat3.png

Maybe this one but it's up to you if you want to do it. It actually has quite a bit of harmony.

https://wolvesinsheepskin.bandcamp.c...-is-impossible

Hey, welcome back TH! Nice to see you again!

Thanks man! I just couldn't take life on the streets any more. The cold, rainy nights, moved on by the cops, selling my body to survive (you don't get much for EUR 5.31, I can tell you!) and living like an animal. And then, one cold drizzly night, as I struggled to keep warm and watched the alleys for the approach of the Kneebreaker Gang, to whom I owed big money, it came to me: why not just come back here? Sure, Batty's here, but I could put up with that. The very next morning I hopped on a train (hobo class, of course) and that afternoon found myself back here in Journaltown. What a ride!