SOUTHERN LORD’S LATEST SIGNING HAS SOME SERIOUS HALITOSIS
Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 2:00pm by Gary Suarez
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?]
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.
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
The new millennium has signaled the transformation of American black metal. What was originally a subterranean scene mostly represented by obscure tape demos from Burzum-worshipping one-man bands (or the split releases they did with other sequestered basement dwellers) has now surfaced. With Nachtmystium’s major label hype machine in full swing last year USBM can finally claim a recognizable figurehead, something that had always separated them from their European cousins. Riding this new wave, Wolves in the Throne Room have emerged as another familiar name.
