Primordial Arcana

Since releasing 2006s now-classic Diadem of 12 Stars, Olympia, Washingtons Wolves in the Throne Room, led by brothers Nathan and Aaron Weaver, have continually thwarted expectations. They release new music only when they have something genuinely new to offer. They experiment with textures, instrumentation, and vocals, sometimes radically as on Celestite, the electronic ambient companion to 2011s Celestial Lineage. In the four-year gap between 2017s Thrice Woven and Primordial Arcana, they built their own Owl Lodge Studios to record their first self-contained album; it was written, recorded, produced, and mixed by the trio -- WITTR has also made singer and guitarist Kody Keyworth a full contributing writer and production partner. The only other participants here are guest bassist Galen Baudhuin (Infera Bruo) and multi-instrumentalist Yianna Bekris, of one-woman black metal project Vouna, who contributes to two tracks. Musically, Primordial Arcana sits dead center between the texturally expansive Celestial Lineage and the Cascadian black metal of Thrice Woven. There are ingloriously buzzing guitars, blastbeats, melodic pianos, hovering synths, growling vocals, truly symphonic atmospherics, and field recordings. The album meets the bands criteria for presenting the dramatic alongside the dynamic, yet exceeds them both with its most sophisticated set of melodies. Opener Mountain Magick commences with an occult vibe as the sounds of scurrying animals, droning synths, and field-recorded ephemera are met by raging drums and squalling guitars less than a minute in. Nathan Weavers growled vocals meet the thunderous drums head-on. A mesmerizing single-string guitar break adds majesty to the menace as the tune shifts, only to re-emerge at twice the intensity. Spirit of Lightning develops more slowly. A circular, fragile guitar vamp hovers atop waltz-time drums, echo-laden vocals, chimes, and bells until the two-minute mark. Nathans vocal claims the center and Aarons quadra-timed blastbeats threaten to overcome the labyrinthine melody but dont succeed. Primal Chasm (Gift of Fire) begins in creepy abstraction with low-end hiss and a droning horn sound before shifting into gear. The tempo accelerates with layered guitar riffs and a buzzing bassline. Nathans roar becomes the hub as the music cascades around him, until the tune explodes harmonically. Masters of Rain and Storm, at over ten minutes, is the sets centerpiece, overflowing with dark, ritualistic, nearly monstrous heaviness. It is episodic, almost suite-like as black and death metal entwine, shifting and alternating their emphases amid layered atmospheres that nearly engulf the mix while they swirl around Nathans vocals in a struggle for dominance. Bekris acoustic guitar introduces a particularly poignant, nearly Baroque interlude before it all turns back on and nearly swallows itself. Primordial Arcana closes with Eostre and Skyclad Passage, two nearly ambient experimental tracks that, when taken together, add a haunted ceremonial ethereality full of keyboards and nature sounds. As a whole, the album doesnt provide a lot sonically that fans havent heard before, but it doesnt need to because WITTR have created their most uneasy balance of brute force, massive power, and brooding, trepidatious calm to date. ~ Thom Jurek