By Avinash Mittur
Jan. 26th 2012, The Echoplex, Los Angeles CA: Wolves In the Throne Room are a rare success story in today’s music industry. For nearly ten years, the band has released their unique brand of black metal on their terms and have been met with acclaim and sold out tours across the country. Their music has attracted everyone from hipsters sporting purple v-necks to die-hard metal maniacs in black band shirts. Last night, WITTR treated this diverse Los Angeles audience to seventy five minutes of the most aurally punishing, yet beautiful live music I have had the pleasure of hearing.
The massive line outside the Echoplex last night exemplified the success WITTR have received; despite existing in an age of total music piracy, hundreds turned up to pay money to see them, and dozens more waited in vain for tickets to become available. Tickets were cheap for this event; about $16 dollars before the concert, and then $18 on the day of the show. The concert was more than reasonably priced, and the Echoplex was a perfect venue for their style of music. A bigger venue potentially could have hampered the experience even if more fans could have been accommodated.
I finally entered the venue just in time for WITTR’s set; given the kind of music the band plays, I couldn’t imagine many openers being able to successfully warm up last nights audience. The Weaver brothers and live guitarist Kody Keyworth set up their instruments as strange avante-garde music played on the P.A. and fog filled the stage. Without any warning, the band began their set with “Thuja Majus Imperium,” despite no change in lightning or any introductory music. The lack of a buildup to the start of the show was startling, yet amazingly effective. As soon as the band began their set, I knew this concert would be free of any time wasters such as random speeches or encore breaks.
Upon the first synthesizer drone of the night, Kody and vocalist/guitarist Nathan Weaver lit candles and before we knew it, the Echoplex had been permeated with the smell of the woods. The lighting throughout the concert was minimal, yet it contributed to the atmosphere in a big way. Blue light showed on parts of the stage, with a golden light shining upon Aaron Weaver’s drum set. Seeing Kody and Nathan’s bodies drift in an out of the darkness as they moved with the music was a visual spectacle I hadn’t experienced since I had seen Deep Purple four years ago. These elements, coupled with an incredibly loud, yet clear mix contributed to an all-encompassing attack on my senses. This concert didn’t just look and sound like a Wolves In The Throne Room show, it smelled like a Wolves In The Throne Room show.
As mentioned earlier, the mix was perfect despite the liberal cranking of the volume knob. Both Nathan and Kody’s guitars were equally audible despite my position on the right edge of the house, and Aaron’s drums were a force unlike any other I had heard. I could feel every bass drum hit vibrate in my throat; it was an unsettling feeling, but it only helped the bleak atmosphere this set created. Nathan’s howls and shrieks cut through the instrumental chaos perfectly and intensified the already gnarly battery of noises. Unlike many overly loud concerts I have attended, the mix was not heavy on any particular frequency, and as such my ears felt fine afterwards.
When it came to the band’s performance, it was tough to tell what was perfect and what wasn’t. Dissonance and off-key notes could have very well been intentional, and in the sea of tremolo picked riffs, throat-shredding vocals, blast-beats and synthesizer soundscapes, the songs took a life of their own, encompassing a larger musical entity that mistakes or bum-notes couldn’t even affect. The band’s stage presence was minimal, but it would be wrong to expect otherwise given their style of music. Headbanging was their primary tool of physical communication, and it got the job done. Luckily, the absolute trance that the music had the put us under went largely uninterrupted throughout the set. The only disruptions came in the form of occasional security pulling audience members out for smoking and rare rounds of applause in between songs. To have this show go on without a technical hitch was a wonderful change of pace, and improved the quality of the concert greatly.
The band ended their set without an encore break at about 75 minutes flat. If I had one complaint about the band’s part in the show, is that I feel the set could have easily been extended to 90 minutes given the amount of material they have released over the years. The entire show had gone by without a word uttered by any of the band members, and frankly I couldn’t have been happier. More than anything, Wolves In The Throne Room had crafted their own little world last night, filled with sensory details of their design and choosing. To witness a musical group accomplish that and be apart of it was quite simply, awe-inspiring. Here’s hoping that Wolves In the Throne Room will continue to pull off this feat for years to come.
Rating: 9.5/10
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