Wolves in the Throne Room- Estuary (Album Review)

Wolves in the Throne Room has gone through quite an evolution over the last twenty-four years, as their earlier albums defined a specific variant of atmospheric black metal but later efforts explored everything from ambient to folk and doom.  2021’s Primordial Arcana felt like one of the biggest shifts in sound the band had offered since 2014’s ambient album Celestite, as it focused on a bit more doom and folk passages and the writing felt a bit more dynamic compared to the band’s usual build-ups.  Five years after that effort, the current lineup of the group has returned with Estuary which feels like a return to their earlier peaks and valleys approach to writing while injecting some new elements into the mix.  It’s a noticeably more aggressive effort that feels a little more oriented towards traditional black metal at times but still provides the stunning peaks and otherworldly atmosphere that has made Wolves in the Throne Room so appealing.

Where some of the band’s past efforts have looked at the distant past and elements of nature, Estuary opts for a narrative one thousand years in the future after the death of civilization and the music reflects this shift in perspective.  You still get a dense wall of sound where the whirlwind of guitar, bass, and drums wash over you with a considerable amount of power, but tracks like “Knights of Tiamat” and “The Orca Cliffs” inject instrumentation that has more of an industrial or even dark ambient pulse into the mix which fits the futuristic and sense of decay the band is exploring thematically.  Compared to its predecessor the songwriting is a bit more singularly focused and emphasizes more aggression and faster tempos, so don’t expect as many slower, reflective moments or dips into softer folk territory.  The title track kicks things off with what feels like Wolves in the Throne Room’s most traditional sounding black metal track to date, as while it does still have some soaring melodies the low-end and harsher elements dominate things and give off a very different tone.  It does admittedly take a bit to get going and didn’t quite draw me in as much as some of the group’s previous openers, but “Knights of Tiamat” is where things really open up and the writing reaches some truly intense and dark moments that hook you from the start.  You do get some brief periods of calm on this track around the three-and-a-half-minute mark, but what separates the sound here from the previous album is when these breaks do occur things still have a sense of tension and dread.  “The Orca Cliffs” and “Ghosts Among the Obelisks” utilize similar patterns effectively, letting the darker melodies and industrial pulses builds to almost claustrophobic levels.  My only other complaint is that when the band does fully slow things down they stretch things out a little too far, as “Foretold in Reflections” settles into a plodding tempo by the end and overstays its welcome.

All three members of Wolves in the Throne Room contribute vocals to Estuary, and long-running live bassist Galen Baudhuin also returns on both the bass and vocal front on the recording.  I mentioned this in my review of Primordial Arcana, but the fact that every member adds to the vocal performances gives it a much more varied and expansive approach compared to a lot of the other black metal of this type.  You’ll hear that right out of the gate on this album, as “Estuary” has much hazier and distorted screaming initially, transitions into the usual raspier screams after a few minutes, and then brings in some much lower growls that fill out the lower end on the second half.  “Knights of Tiamat” follows a similar pattern, but there are sung/chanted sections towards the end that sound like they have been pitch shifted to sound almost robotic or inhuman.  Compared to the last few albums it felt to me like the growls were even more prominent on Estuary, bringing an almost death metal sense of weight to the vocal work that shakes things up further.

This latest full length from Wolves in the Throne Room took a bit longer to click with me than its predecessor, as the opener takes a bit of time to get going and “Foretold in Reflections” is a bit overstretched and padded.  But the bulk of what the material offers retains the same powerful peaks and sweeping atmospherics, but reframes it in a darker, aggressive context with some industrial pulses added in for good measure.  In some ways the way the songs build remind me of the more straightforward pummeling Black Cascade offered back in 2009 but showcases how much the band has changed in the years since.  I think Primordial Arcana slightly edges it out for me, but even this far into their career Wolves in the Throne Room have a lot of interesting ideas left to offer listeners.  Estuary is available from Relapse Records and Century Media Records.

-Review by Chris Dahlberg