Tuesday 7 December 2010

UKBMW V: Wodensthrone


Wodensthrone are possibly even more heavily into their English heritage than Winterfylleth.  Their 2009 album Loss was recorded in Romania under the auspices of Negura Bunget's Huppogramus whose own band is deeply immersed in harnessing their environment and imbuing it with a sense of nationalism (controversial debatable controversy again).  The band members used to be known by their real names, but gave themselves Anglo-Saxon names in the band to reflect their deepening interest in ancient ideology, concepts and spirituality (Brunwulf, Wildeþrýð- who also plays guitar in Winterfylleth - , Rædwalh, Árfæst - of Axis of Perdition and Pulsefear - , Gerádwine, and Hréowsian).  There is as much Forefather to their influences as Wolves in the Throne Room; combining the antiquated, rural and classical with the modern hypersensitive ecological characteristic of this current heathen/pagan movement. That Cascadian sound is present, specifically in the drumming where they eschew the flat drilling of Scandanavian blast beats to employ the lighter, more elastic expanding and contracting style of the temperate forest bands of modern America. In addition, Wodensthrone have an almopst claustrophobically tight constriction of their lead guitar work, tightly coild and winding round each other like ivy round oaks, there's a rich gravitas to their way their songs proceed, a very weighty intensity that belies the complexity of the more post rock influenced arrangements; their sense of anticipatory repetition; recalls the subtle tweaking of riff forms across Krallice tracks, the way the melodic lines rise almost to the point of peak, the cycle round to the starting point that seems like it's shifted up a level, incrementally pushing the tracks forward until everything blurs in a kalaedescopic haze. 

Justifiably one of the key big three Heathen bands along with Winterfylleth and Fen


Those That Crush the Roots of Blood from the album Loss

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