Wolves In The Throne Room - Biography
Wolves in the Throne Room is an ambient, ecological metal band based out of Olympia, Washington, that combines Scandinavian black metal aesthetic concepts, crust punk and radical environmental philosophy. Though the band has underwent roster changes over the years, it is chiefly comprised of brothers Nathan (vocals/guitar) and Aaron Weaver (drums), along with Will Lindsay (vocals/guitar/bass). Since its inception in 2003, WITTR have released three full-length albums and several EPs, while touring extensively throughout the United States and Europe.
The idea for Wolves in the Throne Room was conceived in 2002 when Nathan Weaver was attending an Earth First! gathering in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the Cascadian Mountains. He wrote a pair of songs at the rendezvous—one of them becoming the band’s namesake—and after purchasing a farm just outside of Olympia with his brother, the two began working on music together. They named the self-sustained farmstead Calliope (after the Greek figure in mythology, the daughter of Zeus and muse to poetry). After Nick Paul (guitar) joined the band, they release an EP called aptly, 2004 Demo. Their version of “purifying black metal” involved a environmentally and socially aware counter-manifesto of modern Western beliefs, which was a form of eco-anarchy. Unlike some black metal bands, WITTR is anti-nihilistic and anti-fascist. The basic premise of their beliefs—that man has strayed too far from nature, and spiritual apocalypse is the only thing left in the modern world.
Paul left the group after the initial EP and was replaced by guitarist/vocalist Richard Dahlen, who along with the Weavers would make up the band for the next few years. After releasing another EP called 2005 Demo, the band released its first long-player, Diadem of 12 Stars (2006) on the Washington DC-based Vendlus label. Consisting of four mini-epic tracks, none less than 12 minutes in length, the album was a bombardment of thrash metal riffs, Nathan Weaver’s scorched earth vocal delivery and pagan-esque ideology, made all the more haunting by the hellaciousness of Jamie Myers’ interspersed female vox.
The band’s follow-up and debut for the cult label Southern Lord, Two Hunters (2007) was again a four-song ambient metal odyssey (the longest being the imperial-sounding closer—“I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots”—over 18 minutes). With blastbeats and furious riffs, the bands pummeling wall of sound was distinguished from Scandinavian black metal by the underpinnings of a persistent ambient, dreamy side, particularly on the opener, “Dea Artio.”
Road-weary guitarist Dahlen left the group after having a baby and was replaced by longtime friend, Will Lindsay. After touring Europe, including a gig at the Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands, Southern Lord released a two-track EP called Malevolent Grain in 2009, which showed the band juxtaposing between sinister black metal (“A Looming Resonance”) and ambient doom metal (“Hate Crystal”). That same year, Wolves in the Throne Room also released its third LP—the Randall Dunn-produced Black Cascade (Southern Lord), a four-song set recorded on a 1973 Neve console. Said to be a more personal album that the previous releases, the song titles—“Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog,” “Amonic Trance,” “Ex Cathedra” and “Crystal Ammunition”—all correspond to a different card in the Tarot deck.
