So I did take an excerpt from this track and added some strings and a choir to it. Really interesting how it brightens up the track without feeling out of place. It supports what y'all are saying that there are beautiful harmonic ideas in these BM tracks but also shows that I still have a hard time hearing them unless done with (or accompanied by) clean instruments. One day I'll crack the sound of BM! www.bandlab.com/criticalcomposer/wolves-bones-strings-proof-of-concept-e9912e11
Wow! This is so cool. I can totally see Wolves doing something like this. Underworld Aurora, from their most recent album comes to mind as pulling off similar melodic ideas with strings/synths. Also from their most recent album, the track Masters of Rain and Storm has some really cool harmonic ideas.
There's so many kinds of black metal - not all of them complex. But, yeah, I think I like many of them because of how they convey emotion. That, and I like the grit and dissonance. If they do interesting stuff like weird time signatures, that's usually just a bonus.
I really look forward to getting my BM ears so that I can hear the emotion of genre. I occasionally get hints, like in this track, but it's still lost on me usually. Still, getting a few moments out of this one is progress so that's neat.
This is one of my favorite Wolves in the Throne Room songs, to me it is catharsis personified in sonic form. I was going through a rough breakup and was driving into work, went over a mountain with thunder clouds rolling in the music absolutely helped me transition to a different psychological phase of that tough time, one of closure.
I wonder if "melancholic black metal" bands like Woods Of Dessolation, Austere, and Annorkoth were inspired by this, since it sounds very much like the first few minutes of the song but with orchestral elements behind the guitars. I always thought the sound to be more of an offshoot of DSBM with some blackgaze inspiration, but now I'm thinking it might not be.
You mentioned seeing the more traditional black metal through a post black lens, but I'd say WITTR is way more post black than traditional. They're frequently cited as one of the founders of so-called Cascadian black metal, which most of those bands are the similar atmospheric/post black sounding tunes. This is my fav album from the band, good song selection.
Gotcha, so maybe it's just this song then that felt super focused on texture. I'll have to continue this concept with the next BM track and see if I still get "post-" vibes or not.
There is indeed an aproximation between black metal and post rock sounds. One could conceivably trce a lot of structural similarities between a band like Wolves in the Throne Room and say, Cult of Luna or even stuff like Godspeed You Black Empreror. They don't sound alike in the traditional sense, but they do play around with a lot of similar concepts. One album that could potentially bridge that gap of understanding is Agalloch's The Mantle. You reacted to Ashes Against the Grain, I think, which is the band at its most focused, but the Mantle is the band at its most creative and playful, I'd say. For one thing, it's structured like an album, with leitmotifs here and there, But it's also remarkably the band at its least black metal, infusing their sound not only with a lot of post rock-ish atmospheres, and a few passages with non metal instruments such as trombone and cello. It doesn't sound anything like this and the Mantle doesn't have a single blastbeat in sight, but in hearing it, I guess you'll likely understand how it was hugely influential on bands like WiTTR. Someone elsewhere in the comments also mentioned Dornenreich, and I'd say you're long overdue testing the waters on anything from their Bitter ist dem Tod zu Dienem album, if you want even more touches of acoustic atmospheres and cellos in your black metal chaos. Back on the issue of the production, first thing to note is, quite often the first few albums from metal bands are brimming with youthful enthusiasm and quite a gefty dose of acne, and nowhere is that truer than in the early 90s black metal. For perspective, the main guys of Enslave composed their first album at ages 13 and 17 respectively; Ihsahn was 17 when he recorded the first Emperor album. This youthfulness also translated in a certain lack of professionalism that evolved into a deliberate aesthetic. Like you pointed out, the production is pretty clear on the clean parts of this song, so you know they were probably driving the sound engineers insane by asking to fuzzify it more in the studio. It's all about creating beauty and (relative) sense out of the harshness, and in fact using that harshness to deliver themes that are more unshamedly melodic than your average thrash or death metal riffing, but delivering them in such a manner that they don't lose any of the harshness. It's obtuse, and flies in the face of logic and that kind of is the point. Think Dark Souls as an analogue. Dark Souls games frequently offer gorgeous worlds to explore rich with history and lore, and they coat them in a similar harshness and outward hostility. Many of its systems are frequently obtuse, even unwelcoming, and some of that is actually the result of bad technical execution or rather obtuse ideas that more or less became ingrained as part of the soulsborne genre. That's not to dissimilar to what happens here, I think.
Excellent explanation. Glad to see I'm on to something with the black/post similarity. Also seeing you mention the production being obtuse gives me a smile. At least I'm not just having a hard time because of my ears or something. I mean, that's certainly part of it but the sound design being purposefully difficult to stick with makes me feel a little better about it all :)
Good comparison with the Soulsborne games, though I don't think their obtuseness is the result of bad technical execution. I think those games were intentionally designed to build up a community of players who would figure stuff out by trial-and-error and then share their wisdom with the rest of the community. Not to say everything about FS are perfectly executed, but I think in they know what kind of games they're trying to make and generally make them very well to that purpose. Similarly, a lot of the "bad technical execution" in BM is a conscious aesthetic choice (like the rough production), though some of it is due to either a limited budget or technique. The OG BM bands made music that sounded like it was recorded in a basement on cheap equipment because much of it really was, but it became the sound of BM so that later bands sought to recreate it; kinda like how Tarantino sought to recreate the "bad technical execution" on his grindhouse-inspired films.
Very cool of you to check out this band they're quite interesting and I like the song particular. Your comment about seeing it in a post-rock lens is very astute this band and many like it have often been called post black metal
One of my top 10 favorite songs of all time here. Simply amazing. If you want to check out another great song of theirs? I quite like "Ahramanic Trance" and think you will too!
Maybe Black Metal is so elitist that it's very production is a test of faith. 'You really have to try hard to prove that you are worthy of joining our moody-dudes club'. But I do love this song. when there's a beautiful black metal riff hiding in a storm of noise, it gives me a feeling of a howling snow storm, with a haunting melody carried on the wind, always just out of proper earshot.
Hi Brian, I think you missed the point that such music is therapy for a certain group of people. The distorted sound is a rough texture to suppress a permanent itch. Fast drumming is usually matched with slow riffing which has the effect of the drums fading out while the listener can enjoy the harmonies. This sound is not aggressive at all, it is inner peace. The lyrics match the sound, devoting oneself to nature puts out the fire within the soul.
Oh this is nice. Not my favourite BM band, but its relaxing and soothing for the soul. If you are doing last tracks Third Ion - Zero Mass is an absolute masterpice. :) Big thank you for your vids dude! Keep em coming.
WITTR are a band I always want to like more than I do. They basically combined influences from two of my favorite BM bands (Emperor and Weakling) and generally go for that cold, distanced, and epic aesthetic; but I've gone through their discography a couple of times and it all kinds of blends together for me without many tracks or riffs or moments standing out. I will say that this is probably my favorite track from them from my favorite album, so I think this is about as good as they get... but compared to the best from Emperor and Weakling I just don't feel they measure up. Funnily enough with you mentioning the orchestral stuff; Emperor basically invented the genre of symphonic black metal on their early albums, and while they were pretty limited to basic synth strings and mostly just used them for texture, I think the idea was still there. There are some BM bands that have gone further with that idea including Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth.
I posted an excerpt of this track with some strings/choir on top of it and everyone mentioned how close to Emperor it sounded. I guess I gotta get back to their older stuff.
@@CriticalReactions In the Nightside Eclipse and Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk are their two classics that laid the foundations for symphonic black metal. After that they edged more towards what would become avant-garde black metal, with Prometheus in particular being one of my all-time favorite metal albums (of any genre).
Man, I really hope you can check out a band called Old Nick, wierd name, I know. I understand you dont want to listen to more Black Metal or you are tired of it, but this most be the funniest black metal I heard in my life, it reminds me of scooby doo and something children related, it is very raw production and the synths is maybe to much and very noticed and maybe to high but it is just so much fun. Check out Old Nick - ghost o clock, It is a full EP so not a album but I just want someone to check it out, Old Nick - iam vampire castle if you want a full album, but that album are maybe little more raw in production. Anyways, bye.
@@CriticalReactions Yeah thats for me atleast, it just seems that Old Nick does not take them so serious as many BM bands does, for me atleast it just so fun and interesting/cheesy as of they are a Power Metal band almost, hard to describe. I have never ever In my life atleast heard BM like Old Nick, beside the raw production and the vocals.
Sometime when I have money to spare I need to send you some atmospheric BM with cleaner production. The genre is full of very musically interesting compositions, but its of my opinion that alot of the "go to" bands aren't very good at showing off whats so good about the genre to people not used to the genre
