Wolves in the Throne Room

Wolves in the Throne Room managed to surprise everyone with their debut album “Diadem of 12 Stars” (2006) and successor “Two Hunters” (2007). The Americans reinvented the black metal genre with their ode to rain storms, the smell of burning wood and the unbridled energy of North-American forests. The band doesn’t need corpse paint to be convincing. Their intriguing mix of black, doom, dark ambient and folk turned Wolves in the Throne Room into one of the most popular bands in the extreme genre, leaving a terrific impression in every venue they play. “Thrice Woven” is their most recent album from 2017 with guest vocals from Anna von Hausswolff and Steve Von Till (Neurosis), among others. After the strange intermezzo year of 2020, we expect new work in 2021.

Stygian Bough is a new collaboration between Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin, which sounds like a match made in heaven: transcendental dark folk with bone-crushing doom riffs. On “Mirror Reaper” from 2017, Bell Witch had a desolate heaviness to it that could block out the Sun. On the result of their collaboration with Aerial Ruin, “Stygian Bough – Volume 1”, the overall sound is slightly less dark. There’s more room for meditative singing and acoustic passages without it affecting its heavy nature. We cannot think of a better opener for tonight.