Wolves In The Throne Room announce new record, Primordial Arcana, out on August 20th via Century Media Records and Relapse Records

Two decades into their journey as ritualistic black metal conjurers, Wolves In The Throne Room have emerged from the forest with Primordial Arcana, their most majestic record to date. Always uncompromising, Primordial Arcana sees Wolves In The Throne Room stay true to their unique vision. A record born out of the DIY ethos, this new record proves to be the band’s most genuine and focused, as well as one of this year’s most ambitious musical offerings. The name Primordial Arcana is a reference to the band’s ongoing reach back to the most ancient, archetypal energies and cements Wolves In The Throne Room’s legacy as one of US Black Metal’s most daring, unique, and quintessential bands. This new record is also the band’s first completely self-contained work – in addition to composition and performance, brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver, alongside guitarist Kody Keyworth, handled all aspects of recording, producing and mixing at their own Owl Lodge Studios in the woods of Washington state.

Leadoff track “Mountain Magick” sets the august tone with alpine guitar melodies cresting skyward in triumph. “Spirit of Lightning” returns briefly to the earthly plane as a tribute to the human connections forged in music. Meanwhile, “Primal Chasm (Gift of Fire)” is an explosion of cosmic grandeur, a symphonic rendering of the hermetic maxim “as above, so below” as envisioned by Keyworth. In fact, Primordial Arcana is the first Wolves In The Throne Room record in which Kody was a part of the writing process from the start, so it benefits from his background in cosmic funeral doom. On the video for “Mountain Magick” – which you can watch below this article – , the band comments, “Mountain Magick was shot in the northern reaches of the Olympic Mountains and the ancient forests that shroud the foothills. We wrote the story, created the costumes, shot the footage and did the editing ourselves, so it is a true product of our hearts and souls. Creating our own videos has been a long standing dream and now It’s very exciting to bring these Visions into the Cinematic Realm.”

Primordial Arcana will be released on August 20th via Century Media Records (outside the USA and Canada) and Relapse Records (USA and Canada). Physical and digital pre-orders are available here.

Photo credit: Dreaming God