Music Preview: Wolves in the Throne Room [Sunday at Emo's]

Washington state’s Wolves in the Throne Room are somewhat of an anomaly. Typically boxed into the ambient black metal sub-style of the black metal sub-genre (stay with us here), the band is one of the luminaries on the U.S. black metal landscape that’s making a conscious effort to push the boundaries of a genre that has a tendency to remain stagnant. WITTR incorporates an ecologically conscious worldview, not only into their music but also their lifestyle (members live on a sustainable farming compound outside of Olympia that they call “Calliope”), and an emphasis on catharsis and spiritual well-being rather than black metal’s more traditional nihilism and misanthropy.

Some critics have even gone so far as to tag WITTR as post-metal; this however, is not to say that their music is anything but extreme. Their latest record for Southern Lord, Black Cascade, consists of four extended, gut-rattling endurance tests (clocking in at ten-plus minutes each) that fade into a glacial ambient sheen, and then erupt back into icy percussive thunder. They bring their pummeling live show, along with their trademark fog machines and candelabras, to Emo’s outside stage on Sunday night.

Rounding out the bill are two bands who fall decidedly on the doomier side of things: A Storm of Light, led by Neurosis’ long time collaborator and visual artist Josh Graham, and which features members of Unsane, Tombs, and Satanized. Up first is local quartet The Roller.

Wolves in the Throne Room [Official] [MySpace]
A Storm of Light [Official] [MySpace]
The Roller [MySpace]