Wolves In The Throne Room - Malevolent Grain (2009)

When I first started listening to this album in the first few seconds I said to myself: “Another shitty band trying to sound like ‘true’ black metal that recorded this in their backyard and it’s going to suck”, well let me tell you I was wrong!!! While the recording itself is low quality, it actually adds to the bands general feeling and the feeling of the songs.

The album starts like a typical low budget recording with some very ‘true’ black metal sounding distorted guitars, but when the vocals start…. they are clean female vocals, that sound really, really depressing.

However, the second song proved me right with the black metal shrieks that are traditional of this now labeled ‘ambient black metal’. This release has 2 songs and each of them clocking over 10 min, If I had to compare them to a band I would say their music sounds like Black Forest.

Another interesting fact is that this band hails from Olympia, Washington in the USA while I expected them to be from some dark and depressing place in Eastern Europe. In general, this release is a must for all fans of ‘ambient black metal’ releases, and it does show the bands future potential, since they are currently touring in Europe this means they are definitely doing something right

Country: USA