For nearly twenty-five years, Wolves In The Throne Room have been putting out some of the most interesting black metal to be found.
Along with others such as Panopticon, they’ve taken the genre from its northern European roots and transplanted it to the wild spaces of the US, a young country squatting on an ancient land, away from Christian persecution and European mythology and into the realm of nature, something which has inevitably put a different (and, in Panopticon’s case, explicitly political) slant on things. It’s the sound of rocks, rivers and trees, and the same grasp of temporal space that would also give us the likes of Earth and SunnO))) at the other end of the velocity spectrum.
From their early blend of black metal and post-rock, they have constantly been full of surprises and unafraid to change up their sound, not least on 2014’s Vangelis-esque synth epic Celestite, which somehow sounded nothing like them but felt EXACTLY like them. Which is a neat trick.
All of which brings us to their latest, Estuary. Which, conceptually at least, flips the table completely. Because for a band so steeped in the ancient to record an album depicting a world a thousand years into the future may seem counter-intuitive, except that we have a world reclaimed by nature, a world in which our own civilisation is the ancient one.
And they bring everything they’ve got to bringing it to life, kicking off with the title track, a solid slice of black metal which shifts and changes throughout in the classic WITTR fashion. They may not quite be back to the sprawling gargantuan lengths of Diadem Of Twelve Stars or Two Hunters, but they’re cramming more into what they’re working with. And they’re still hardly short pop numbers — Estuary numbers six tracks for a full forty-eight minutes.
“Knights Of Tiamat” harks back to their early work, with an extended, slightly more tranquil middle passage that then kicks off into some surprisingly clean soloing before bringing the riff back for a choral climax. “Foretold In Reflections” is based around a supremely chunky riff that wouldn’t sound amiss coming from recent Darkthrone, but played much tighter, while “The Orca Cliffs”, probably my favourite track on the album, eschews lengthy intros by just walking right up and smacking you in the face with the riffing and the choral synths right off the bat. If I was an orca, this is definitely what I’d be listening to while I was sinking a billionaire’s yacht.
It’s a beautiful blend of black metal riffing and chiming Fields Of The Nephilim-esque guitars (although they’re worlds apart, Wolves In The Throne Room always put me in mind of the Neffs, particularly The Nephilim and Elizium — and vice versa; they capture a similar mood, and there’s something very cinematic about both of them).
“Ghosts Among The Obelisks” was the first single, and gave a great idea of what to expect with its atmospheric shifts between blastbeats and unifying lead riffs. It rocks, and while it might not be my all-time favourite WITTR track, it’s probably the one I’d play someone if they wanted to know what the band sounded like; it kinda does everything they do in nine minutes (well, everything they do SO FAR — as I say, they’re always full of surprises), including a twinkly synth outro reminiscent of Celestite.
But you gotta end it somewhere, I guess. And where better than “Wretched Spirits, Land Of The Light”, with its melodic shredding and total onslaught from the rhythm section?
Both a warning of the future and a tribute to the nature that will outlast us, Estuary is yet another absolute banger from Wolves In The Throne Room, and a perfect jumping-on point if you’re new to their exhiliratingly dark charms. But that’s just in the studio. There was no way we were going to miss this shit live.
So we went to the O2 Academy in Islington on 6 November 2026 and braved an incredibly over-zealous security gauntlet (there had been a particularly nasty violent crime in the area a few days previously, but that is no excuse for hiring too few people and choosing the absolute rudest ones you could find) and a total administrative fuckup with the box office (from which we were rescued by WITTR’s supremely helpful tour manager) which meant we missed the first two bands (and ended up with only mobile phone photos).
But by jingo Wolves In The Throne Room were amazing. One of the best times I’ve seen them, to be honest.
Live they’re just as tight and focused a beast as they are on record, but there’s an added energy that comes from being in a crowd all concentrated on watching them coax and wrestle elemental forces from their instruments. There’s that Neurosis-like feeling of being in the path of several storms, occasionally passing through the eye for a bit before being battered around like one of those spinning cows you see in films about inclement weather. You kind of get why people chase tornadoes.
Obviously the set leant heavily on Estuary, whose songs took on whole new dimensions, but they didn’t stick to it by any means. We even get a couple of the synth interludes from previous albums, “Eostre” being a particular highlight. And for some reason, despite Steve Von Till’s piped-in vocal seemingly being about the coming of spring, “The Old Ones Are With Us” always feels so perfect when the nights start drawing in. Perhaps it’s the anticipation that does it.
But for me the high point was the finale, “I Will Lay Down My Bones Among The Rocks And Roots”. Possibly my favourite black metal song of all time (at the moment), and definitely the one I want played at my funeral, it goes on for AGES and goes EVERYWHERE, each stop on its musical journey more intense than the last. And when the initial riff eventually comes back to lay waste to everything in its path, it’s a near-religious experience.
And then they’re done. And when the trance is broken, it feels like it’s been about ten minutes since we got here, even though they’ve played a decent length set. I could honestly have done with another straight week or two of that, allowing for toilet breaks.
But yeah. Basically, Wolves In The Throne Room are SO back, in what’s been a fantastic year for metal. Long may they continue dethroning the tyrants.
-Words: Justin Farrington-
-Pictures: Dave Pettit-
