Earlier this month, Evergreen State black metal masters Wolves In The Throne Room announced they'd be releasing new music in 2014. Aside from naming the producer, long time collaborator Randall Dunn, no other details were given about the forthcoming album. Earlier today, the band's PR company Earsplit Compound released some interesting details about the new album.
Firstly, the new collection of music is going to be titled Celestite and it's going to be a massive departure from what Wolves In The Throne Room have done in the past. According to to the PR release Celestite will have no drums or vocals at all. Instead, the album will consist of, "Rather, deep, heavy crystalline synthesizer journeying, Eno-inspired analog processing and arcane acoustic instrumentation." So the new material is still going to be heavy, but also synth driven, influenced by ambient music pioneer Brian Eno, yet still full of acoustic music as well. It's definitely not what WITTR has done in the past, but it still sounds promising.
If you're scared and confused by this news, the Weaver brothers took some time to explain how this project came about. Hopefully this will set your mind at ease and assuage your fears:
“To make Celestite, we delved into the subterranean sonics that are buried in the mix of Celestial Lineage. We isolated them, processed them and took this unearthed soundscape as our starting point. Upon this base we recorded an entirely new album. Some melodies from Celestial Lineage are recognizable, but these familiar sounds appear as ghosts, barely tethered to the original compositions. This new album is an unorthodox foray; a fully instrumental, experimental companion record to Celestial Lineage. We left some work undone with Celestial Lineage. The recording of that album in the Winter of 2011 was a monumental project for us personally, and the creative fire from those recording sessions was still burning. This recording process was an opportunity to journey into our own inner universe to complete that which needed to be completed.”
There now, that doesn't sound so bad, does it? There's a cross section of metal fans who are going to hate this simply because it's different, but I'm reserving my judgement until I actually hear the music. Stay tuned to Metal Injection for more information about Celestite in the days ahead. And don't forget to bitch and moan about the album in the comments section, too!
