BIRD EATER
Utah
(Exigent)

JESU
Lifeline
(Hydra Head)

EVILE
Enter the Grave
(Earache)

STINKING LIZAVETA
Scream of the Iron Iconoclast
(At a Loss)

WOLVES IN THE
THRONE ROOM
Two Hunters
(Southern Lord)

RED FANG
S/T 

(Wantage)

PURE SOUNDART
Emo is Dead

(Lockjaw)

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Seriously, I was expecting the atmospheric aspect of this Olympia, WA black metal band to extend deeper and way beyond past the ethereal opening cut “Dea Artio”, which flawlessly blends either synthesizer that sounds like guitars or guitars that sound like synthesizer. Either way, it’s an intriguing intro and an innate grower that anticipates this band’s most atmospheric aspirations. The three tracks that follow are of the long kind; “Cleansing” is the shortest and it almost makes it to the tenth minute. But I am not complaining, black metal needs stuff like this. Even if once it kicks in falls into the trappings of all the atmospheric black metal bands, even if what we think we hear is what we actually hear, Two Hunters is still a OK.  The anticipation has been built, their moniker is outstanding and the eerie aura it evokes makes up for a good percentage of what we think we hear.

But what we actually hear, which is of course what we think we hear, is black metal of the most tacit kind. Of course, let’s leave the most mundane of aspects of European black metal out of here.  This band may be more about the idea than the actual realization of dressing up in black, donning corpse paint and bullet belts and spending an afternoon lighting up churches. This is about another kind of black. Clearly, Wolves In The Throne Room like their shoegaze laced with plenty of metal, and like their guitars buzzsaw, and their drums slamming, and their songs long to the point where they sound endless and through such trappings become more of a trip than a three minute slam dunk. But at the core, they play black metal. Plain and simple.

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