Unlike other contemporary bands who have proven willing to cuckold their more fundamentalist fans by not remaining steadfast to the locked-in-amber ethos of Norwegian black metal, Wolves in the Throne Room have gotten off fairly light. Whereas the likes of Opeth and Liturgy take increasing shovelfuls of shit for turning their backs on all but the most ornamental of BM tropes, WITTR have never greatly deviated from the high velocity, blast-beat-as-canvas song structure of the traditionalist bent.
Now they did start tweaking the formula on 2011's Celestial Lineage, but in a half-baked fashion that I was frankly surprised got the overall positive reception that it did. Mainly: the more straightforward black metal tracks added nothing to the template of previous albums while the incessant ambient interludes sabotaged any momentum while failing to act as anything more than disposable delaying tactic.
Well shit, brothers, if you lamented the ratio of song-to-keyboard-wankery on the last record, you're going to be none too pleased with this year's Celestite. A few subdued, grouchy guitar riffs here and there excepted, this is all synthesizer mood piece from top to bottom.
Of course, don't let WITTR's black metal pedigree fool you into thinking this is analogous to the Casio wankery released under the Burzum name while Varg was in prison. More accurately it's like an ambient, time-stretched version of the Goblin-worshipping, vintage synth workouts that Zombi were regularly pumping out before they just sort of fell off the map. So we're talking 70's space rock, essentially, Tangerine Dream and Cluster weaving evocatively in and out of the mix, to the point where stuff like "Initiation at Neudeg Alm" comes off as overt tribute.
When the buzzier Moog tones cede to the more celestial synth washes – as on the opening and closing tracks, "Turning Ever Towards the Sun" and "Sleeping Golden Storm", respectively – the band instead start to resemble more direct ambient forefathers such as Brian Eno, or even the sprawling 90's sound of The Orb. The problem is that, while Celestite is not positioned as any kind of homage, the Weaver brothers rarely bring anything but sheer mimicry to the table.
The one exception would be "Celestite Mirror", at 14.5 minutes the de facto centerpiece of the album and by far the most compelling. The interweaving of subtle bass and advancing/retreating acid washed synth lines are a veritable guidepost of all that's one dimensional about the rest of the album. Whereas the other four tracks are content to meander aimlessly along the same path with little interest in improv or evolution, "Celestite Mirror" is a multi-part suite whose components not only flow logically from one to the next, but represent a progressive range of emotional states as well.
That's one track, though. The rest of the album is surprisingly chipper, almost hippie-like ambient that would not have been out of place on the FAX label circa 1994. But where the whole ambient techno movement was about providing a twilight palliative to the pounding house tunes kids had been dancing to all night, Celestite is just plain rootless and without purpose. It's nice to see a band challenge their fan base, but unless the idea was to turn people on to better material by Pete Namlook and Tangerine Dream I'm not sure what WITTR have accomplished here.
Blackened new age, anyone?
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