I’ve made no secret of my general distaste for black metal, going so far as to call for a boycott of one of the sound’s most celebrated and influential figures. Without question, I’m not the ideal person to defend any aspect of a subgenre that I consider an eye-rolling, oft-racist joke. And yet, Tim Hunter at Invisible Oranges has driven me to stand up for it (sorta) thanks to his scathing and shoddy article lambasting the sub-subgenre “Cascadian black metal” and those journalists who dare to use the term in their pieces.

I’m not saying the music itself is bullshit – that’s more of a personal taste thing – but I think the sub-genre as a concept is bullshit. Ever since Wolves in the Throne Room garnered a more significant share of the music spotlight (chiefly by playing a corporate-sponsored festival, I’ve seen the term “Cascadian black metal” tossed around in more articles recently. Some of these have been from outside the metal world (the New Yorker, The Guardian), while others are more in tune with the underground. But I’m skeptical by default of any attempt by music media to create new pigeonholes for the music they cover. In some cases, it’s merely lazy journalism; in other cases (I’m looking at you, New Yorker dude), it’s just a way to make it seem like you know more than you really do about your topic.

Here’s why Hunter’s argument is (to reclaim the epithet) bullshit.

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I’m officially making the switch from the Top Hard Music chart to the Current Hard Music chart for the purposes of this column. While it’s interesting to see what classic Metallica and Aerosmith albums are charting and I still may occasionally reference the former, the latter chart paints a much clearer picture of the modern metal landscape by opening up more room for new records that sell less than classics, allowing a larger number of relevant new releases to place in the Top 100.

This chart has a slightly different way of tallying new releases, where sometimes they appear as having already been on for one week before official release — I’m still sorting through precisely what that difference is — so occasionally the chart positions are a little mixed up. But this only comes into play much farther down the list and this chart still provides a good gauge of relativity.

Now, onto the releases: as you all no doubt know, Mastodon and Machine Head were the biggies last week, and both did quite well — but the album that ended up at #1 is also a debut, and none of us saw it coming. Sebastian Bach, Warbringer and Maylene & The Sons of Disaster fared well in Week 1, while new records from Rose Funeral, Textures, Suffokate, Rwake, Brutal Truth and many, many more also appeared in the Top 100.

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MetalSucks’ own photographic genius Alyssa Lorenzon recently caught Wolves in the Throne Room at Broad Street Ministries in Philly, and, as always, she snapped some awesome pics you, our beloved readers, to enjoy. For better or worse, the band uses very sparse lighting and doesn’t allow flash photography, so this smaller-than-usual gallery has a, well… let’s call it a moody quality to all the photos. Still killer, though!

Check out all of Alyssa’s pics after the jump!!!

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The “Top Hard Music” Chart I’ve been using for this column for the past couple of years is a mixed bag; on one hand, a lot of the “Top Hard Music” albums are really old albums that continue to sell (Metallica’s Black Album, various greatest hits collections, catalogue albums of whatever big band happens to be on tour at the time, etc) which paints a skewed picture of what I’m really interested in, namely the new stuff. On the other hand, it’s interesting to see how those older albums continue to sell.

I was recently alerted to the existence of a different chart, “Current Hard Music;” I’m not sure what the criteria is for what constitutes “Current” as some albums on this chart have been on for 90+ weeks and some artists are certainly not “current” by any means, but it does seem to paint a much better picture of the sales of newer albums. Without perrenial classics and greatest hits comps hogging up precious chart space, fewer units need to be sold for a band to get into the Top 100 on the “Current” chart. I am contemplating a move to focusing on that chart in the future. For now, I’ll stick with Top Hard Music with some added albums from the bottom of the other chart. What do you guys think?

Anyway, this week we’ve got big debuts from Pearl Jam and Opeth, big second week drops from a number of artists (Anthrax, Dream Theater and more) that still have pretty big sales numbers, and a look at some albums that came out earlier this year (Black Dahlia Murder, All Shall Perish, more).

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Last week was a big, big sales week for new metal releases, I’d imagine one of the highest cumulative tallies of the year so far. The #1 through #6 entries on the Top Hard Music charts could all be considered smashes in today’s relative terms, with Dream Theater, Anthrax and others making big splashes. Arch/Matheos, Vader and Wolves in the Throne Room also had nice debuts. Let’s look at the numbers:

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Wolves in the Throne Room | NYC @ The Bell House | 12 Sep 2011 from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

Last week Axl and I were taxed with the decision of choosing between Wolves In the Throne Room and classic thrash not once, but twice. On Monday, September 12th, Wolves played mere blocks from the Vince Division of the MS Mansion at The Bell House, and Axl and I had for weeks been staunchly instisting on attending this show over the “secret” Anthrax show at the Best Buy Theater in Manhattan because we’re jaded bloggers. But as hype for the Anthrax show mounted we caved… and I do not think we made the wrong decision. The ‘Thrax played an awesome headline set including 3 new jams from the super-great Worship Music, there were myriad special guests and all-star jams, it was fun all around. On Wednesday the 14th Wolves played another set in Brooklyn, but this time we gave in to Big 4 hype and graciously accepted access to the Yankees press box from whence we live blogged. Again, do not regret; seeing a rock show in Yankee fucking Stadium was quite an experience (still, fuck the Yankees).

It’s unfortunate we didn’t get to see Wolves in the Throne Room this time around because they rarely come east and their live show is really something to witness. Watching this excellent footage by the always reliable (((unartig))) makes me feel like I really missed out. I can’t get into Wolves in the Throne Room records (although our own Kellhammer loves their new record Celestial Lineage); for me it’s all about the live show, getting lost in the soundscapes and atmosphere, just letting go and allowing the music to take you over. Next time.

-VN

[via Metal Injection]

Damn. After a few slow weeks of new releases, we have a ton of new stuff coming out this week, including new stuff from Anthrax, Dream Theater, Wolves in the Throne Room, Haste the Day, Vader, Primus and my personal favorite, Elks, plus many more. We have officially entered the fall new release season!

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I meant to remind you guys yesterday but I’m a dick so I forgot — Arch Enemy’s North American Khaos Tour, which we here at MetalSucks are very proudly co-presenting, is now underway! I’ve been trying to find fan-filmed footage from last night’s kickoff show in Baltimore to no avail, but I hear the concert was great… which is really no shock. Especially given that the three support bands — DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch, and Chthonic — are all as much fun as Arch Enemy! You can get dates here. If anyone is gonna be at the NYC show tonight, come find us. I’ll be the really, really not-sober guy in the back screaming for them to play “Savage Messiah” over and over again.

Now, here’s some stuff we did this week:

• We debuted new music from Black Cobra.
• We also debuted an outtake from the movie Hesher and a clip from Fantomas’ new live DVD.
• We spoke to Charlie Benante from Anthrax and Avi Kulawy from Magrudergrind.
• We checked out the latest releases from Brutal Truth, Wolves in the Throne Room,and Bloodsoaked.
• We debated the merits of new songs from Mastodon, Opeth, and Megadeth.
• We launched The Third Annual “Run MetalSucks for a Day” contest.
• Vince listed “The Top Fifteen Reasons Metallica are the Yankees of Metal,” and then The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley offered a retort.
• We fucked Bret Michaels in the motherfucking eye.
• We voted for Sergeant D.’s acoustic cover of The Acacia Strain.
• We almost had to kill a puppy.

And, oh hey, did we mention that tickets for The Metal Suckfest are on sale now? We did? Okay, swell!

Have a good weekend, y’all. See ya Monday.

-AR

While at work a few years ago, as I was hammering out document after document in my cubicle, listening to Wolves in the Throne Room battle the sound of my fingertips hitting the keyboard, a co-worker popped her head in letting me know that what I was listening to sounded like “funeral music” to her. Of all the niches I’ve heard Wolves in the Throne Room get thrown into, I thought this one was the most interesting. I guess I could see where she was coming from to an extent — the mournful vocals lent by Jessika Kenney on Two Hunters wouldn’t by any means seem out of place as an accompaniment to, say, a roaring funeral pyre. That very element, in fact, was what really took that album to another level for me. So of course I was glad to hear the beautiful, haunting voice grace the band’s newest release, Celestial Lineage.

Fans of Wolves in the Throne Room have come to expect a certain quality hard to exactly decipher or pinpoint with each anticipated album. That sort of earthen and, at the same time, undeniably ethereal sound, which invokes visions of rain soaked forest beds, or cavernous ruins of a long lost congregation of mystics. Of course, I could be completely alone in these specific conjurations, but the fact remains that the brothers Weaver continuously deliver not only meticulously well-constructed pieces, they create an intricate landscape with each note, each chord, each painful cry, taking the listener to another realm entirely. Rounding out the trilogy set forth with the sorrowful Two Hunters, and followed by the more punishing Black Cascade, the release of Celestial Lineage is anything but anticlimactic.

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(Wolves in the Throne Room. Photo by Alison Scarpulla)

I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that NPR is now endorsing metal, despite the fact that it’s been going on for months already. I love NPR and all they offer (especially for news), but this is the chosen music medium of my 65 year-old parents, not exactly a hotbed of youth culture. What’s even more puzzling is the particular aesthetic of metal that NPR has given their blessing; I don’t know how to say this without sounding condescending (and I really don’t mean it that way), but you’d be way more likely to hear the metal bands NPR gives their seal of approval emanating from a Bushwick loft than you would a suburban bedroom in Ohio, or even a basement World of Warcraft mancave. I guess what I’m saying is, with the gigantic mainstream reach NPR has, I wish they would widen the range of metal bands they’re covering; the whole doom/black/crust/stoner/Scion axis is just one small piece of the overall puzzle. But so it goes.

One thing is for certain, though: at least the NPR Metal Czar has good taste. When you’re streaming the first new track from Wolves In The Throne Room’s upcoming album Celestial Lounge and the entirety of Yob’s new doom-tastic opus Atma at the very same time, it’s hard to generate any ill-will at all, even in the way of missed opportunities (like, for example, the new Revocation and Fleshgod Apocalypse albums). If you like good metal and know what’s good for ya, head on over to NPR at the above links to check out new Wolves In the Throne Room and Yob. And be glad that metal is getting a national stage at all.

Yob just wrapped up a run with Dark Castle, but Wolves In the Throne Room go on tour all over North American starting later this month. Last time I saw WITTR was at SXSW 2009; “epic” would be an understatement. Dates after the jump:

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Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out the latest from Deafheaven.

Black metal is a music of destruction, but not as an end in itself. Just as devastating fires are necessary to maintain the evolution of a forest, the outsized musical gestures and inflammatory rhetoric of black metal are aimed at razing the world so that we may begin anew. Strange, then, that it’s only been in the last five years or so that we’ve seen black metal sprouting so many new branches. It’s a sad irony that a music so opposed to orthodoxy should be so concerned with notions of purity.

San Francisco’s Deafheaven are one of a growing legion of young American black metal bands (also including Krallice, Velnias and Liturgy) whose music captures that duality perfectly. There’s plenty of violence in the outpouring of blastbeats and guitars on their self-titled demo (briefly introduced by Vince here), but the violence feels transformative, baptismal, even comforting. Deafheaven’s arcing guitar harmonies lead to conventionally beautiful places; they even fly directly into the sun for the major key flashes of “Daedalus.” It says a lot that the acoustic instrumental “Bedrooms” feels totally at home among the beautiful carnage that surrounds it. It’s just as emotionally complete as the louder tracks.

While Deafheaven’s music shares surface characteristics with the classic black metal sound, this demo is so distanced from Mayhem and Immortal as to be another kind of music entirely. It engulfs rather than tramples, shimmers where so much black metal rattles. These descriptions alone do not make Deafheaven good or bad. But they do amount to an important shift in aesthetic values, one that makes black metal more listenable without taming its spiritual thrust. It’s a shift that has clear predecessors in Weakling, Wolves In the Throne Room and Agalloch. Do Deafheaven offer a take on this strain of black metal that the others don’t? Not really, though they do streamline the sound a bit. Do they offer that same feeling of cleansing that I get when I listen to the aforementioned? Oh, yeah.

(3.5 Horns Up)

-SR

Download Deafheaven’s demo over yonder.

Poor John Cobbett. Ludicra just put out an excellent new album, The Tenant, but the guy has still suffered from some crummy luck, to put it mildly. First, Mayhem canceled the tour Ludicra was supposed to play support on; then they decided “Fuck Mayhem, let’s do it on our own,” and announced a “De-Cancellation” tour.

And then Cobbett’s appendix burst.

And then the doctors at San Francisco General Hospital misdiagnosed Cobbett, gave him a clean bill of health, and sent him home.

Which is how he ended up in the Olympia ER, which is where he remains as of this writing (see photo above). And because this is America, where decent health insurance is unafuckingffordable, John needs help paying all the medical bills.

According to a statement from the band, there are multiple ways you can help John out:

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What do you think Varg is thinking about in this photo?

Reader K-Milo alerted us to the fact that Stereogum recently conducted an interview with the man of the hour, Varg Vikernes. Most of it is exactly the kind of idiotic nonsense you’d expect from this creep – he slams Wolves in the Throne Room (“I haven’t even heard about them before”) and a lot of his Norwegian peers (Enslaved, Immortal, Emperor) who are considerably more talented than he is (“These guys are fucking rats, or they play in bands with rats”) – but there is one section of note: when the topic turns to Vikernes’ political views and his fanbase:

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Here’s something you probably don’t care to know about me: I went to NYU. (I actually did my freshman year at a school called Bard, but gave up on living in a shack in the woods and transferred back to the city after that.) And when I was there, I don’t ever remember even meeting a metalhead, let alone seeing a school-sponsored metal show. I think they offered us discounted tickets to see some shit on Broadway. That was about as cool as it got.

But last night a reader (and current NYU student) known only as “Chris” e-mailed me to say that the NYU Program Board is presenting a show, cleverly titled “Almost the Ides of March: Et Tu Brut(al)?”, which will feature Shrinebuilder, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Salome. It will take place next Thursday, March 11. And the best part? Even for non-NYU students, tickets are only five bucks. (Students pay two bucks, which is the very definition of “a great deal.”)

Even if this concert wasn’t happening at my old school, it would be an incredible line-up for an incredible price. If you live the area, you really oughta check it out.

Get full details here.

-AR

Almost a year ago our own Satan Rosenbloom interviewed Wolves in the Throne Room frontman Aaron Weaver. Ever the articulate and intelligent gentleman, Weaver shared his thoughts about black metal, the commercialization of music, the ideologies behind his band and a whole slew of other topics; it was definitely one of the more in-depth and intriguing interviews we’ve run in the history of this site.

Our Bro-jiras over at Decibel just posted an exclusive Wolves in the Throne Room video from Scion A/V. The video features in an interview with Weaver intercut with live footage of the band performing at last year’s Scion Rock Fest in Atlanta. Though the interview focuses on many of the same topics as our own chat with Weaver, listening to this man talk is never boring; the guy’s got so much to say and his outlook on life is so unique that I actually wish there was more interview footage in the nearly 17-minute clip.

Check it out over at Decibel.

-VN

On paper, Washington’s Black Breath is not the sort of band one typically associates with Southern Lord. Dronesmiths Sunn O))), doomy stoners Eagle Twin, instrumental rockers Pelican, and black metalheads Wolves In The Throne Room all coexist comfortably together on the Californian label. Yet Black Breath’s hybrid of gutter-level punk and classic thrash metal somehow make sense, even if it doesn’t exactly seem appropriate for Southern Lord. Coupled with the August release of Seattle punks The Accused’s all new The Curse of Martha Splatterhead, it almost seems as though the ostentatiously hip imprint is slowly embracing a much less esoteric sound.

On November 10, Southern Lord will re-release Black Breath’s Razor To Oblivion mini-LP in CD format in advance of a proper debut album scheduled for early 2010. That forthcoming full-length was recorded earlier this year and engineered by Converge’s Kurt Ballou. Visit the band’s MySpace page to hear some tracks from Razor To Oblivion.

-GS

[Gary Suarez eats his pizza crust first. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

So I’ve been living in the UK for about four months now, and have managed to take in quite a lot of this “culture” thing they’re so fond of over here. I’ve been to nine countries, eight major metal festivals, and a handful of cities in Ol’ Blighty itself; I’ve gate-crashed hotel parties in Norway with the drummer of Swallow the Sun, stage-dived into a sea of muddy grind freaks in the Czech Republic, gotten roaring drunk with Wolves in the Throne Room in the Netherlands, met Gaahl’s boyfriend in France, gotten lost in Rome, watched Electric Wizard blow an amp in Manchester, lost my mind to Eyehategod at Hellfest, seen Manowar (‘nuff said there) – and that was just the first couple months. Between all the metal, mud, bruises, whiskey, calimocho, hard cider, and terrifying Czech liquor (Becherovka and Fernet are no fucking joke, even if it is Kevin Sharp and Danny Herrera pouring you a shot), I realized that, somehow, something was still missing.

To my immense chagrin, I had yet to take that all-too-necessary pilgrimage up through the Black Country and into the Unholy Land itself – to Birmingham, England. Every metaller worth his leather (and several million other music fans besides) knows exactly why this unimpressive, coal-smudged city matters so much. Birmingham is the ancestral home of heavy metal. Everything – whether it be doom, black metal, powerviolence, or even the plague that is deathcore – everything came from here. The famed Mermaid Pub provided a fertile breeding ground for extreme metal, nestled as it was in a dodgy part of town where the cops ignored the punkers and longhairs milling around out front as the early rumblings of a deadly new sound thundered away upstairs The city itself was the original stomping ground of the dirty sexy hard rock’n’roll of Led Zeppelin, the NWOBHM gods in Judas Priest, the crusty proto-grind of Sore Throat, the scummy grindcore forefathers of Napalm Death, the industrial noise terror of Godflesh, and the one and only BLACK FUCKING SABBATH.

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The big buzz on the street yesterday was that Metallica would be playing at the 2,100 capacity Stubb’s; was it worth getting there early to ensure a spot inside? The 8 semis parked outside the venue loomed large. Would us plebes even be able to get in?  Some friends from the Relapse goon squad opted to try, and apparently getting in wasn’t quite the shit-show we’d anticipated. We opted for Whitechapel instead (bad decision), but did end up listening to three songs from outside the outdoor venue along with a few hundred other kindred souls.

While I was busy not seeing Metallica, I did catch Tia Carrera, Hesta Prynn, Jump Back Jake, Dance Gavin Dance, Whitechapel, Wolves in the Throne Room, Dredg, and then an epic DIY show/party on a bridge over the Colorado River with makeshift performances by Vivian Girls and Trash Talk. Highlights and lowlights after the jump.

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Vince, Kip, and Anton OyVey are all down at SXSW, but don’t worry about lil’ old me; Higgins and I got shit covered. Here’s what happened in the world of metal this week:

• We all finally got to hear the new Mastodon album! Needless to say, intense debate ensued.
• We spoke to Wolves in the Throne Room drummer Aaron Weaver and Lazarus A.D. bassist/vocalist Jeff Paulick.
• No penis? No Dir En Grey!
• Is this new Teagan and Sara shirt metal as fuck, or total hipster bull pucky?
• The Megatallica rivalry continued as we watched Dave Mustaine kill on Jeopardy and Lars Ulrich eat it on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
• Fieldy = Jesus
  
• Read Vince’s initial SXSW reports here and here!

Alright-y, then. Higgins and I are off to make like chimneys and blow smoke. See ya Monday!

-AR

Eight hours straight of phone interviews is nobody’s idea of a good time, especially when the guy doing it usually spends his non-band time working the land on a self-owned farm outside of Olympia, Washington. So Aaron Weaver, the drummer for black metal band Wolves In the Throne Room, must be commended for his affable mood during his revealing conversation with MetalSucks. Weaver has the hyper-articulate manner of someone that speaks not just to be heard, but to be understood; his loquaciousness is balanced by a humility about his band’s place in the world, and his own. Weaver talked to us about Wolves In the Throne Room’s third album Black Cascade (recently reviewed by our own David Bee Roth), and dispelled some myths about the oft-misunderstood eco-spiritualism that guides the band. Other topics of discussion: Is Scion a minion of Satan? Should we fear wheat? Answers to these questions and many more, after the jump.

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