A Historic Day: Wolves In The Dorm Room

.. and shrine builders, and Salome's too.

I couldn't have gotten the news at a better time. It's been quite some time since a show (or any Earthly event, for that matter) has impacted me in such a way that I would consider it profoundly life-altering in any degree. So of course last night when I'd initially heard that Wolves In The Throne Room - a black metal act which I fortunately have had the opportunity to catch live once before - were playing a show the next day my interest got peaked. Even more so when the next pieces of the puzzle were laid before me: it was only $5, Salome and Shrinebuilder were also on the bill, and all this was going to go down at NYU.

Yeah, my jaw dropped also.

Someone had the very good fucking idea of taking 3 bands whose music conveys a sort of transcendental quality to it, and you plant them in a well-renowned facility of educational intake, the result being 50 years down the line future CEO's and tycoons and cybernetic organ harvesters will be controlling every aspect of your insignificant lives while spinning black metal and doom metal.

For the record, I spent the majority of the show sitting, cross-legged, closed-eyed, meditating while under the influence of dextromethorphan and cannabis. ;/

Now, on with the show review!

SALOME

diSEMBOWELMENT would be so proud. They, the accidental grandfathers of death/doom metal initially began with the intent of having some fun, and didn't think much of the fact that they were mixing two extremes of their day: (what we consider) old school death metal, and doom metal. And it was pretty fucking heavy. However, one absolute truth that we all know is that time continues. And in time, trascendence is usually acheived, out with the old, in with the new essentially.

Salome are quite possibly one of my absolute favorite bands from here on out, and surprisingly this is the first time I've ever even heard their music or of them for that matter! This is extreme, sludgey doom that plods along while crushing anything and everything in its path with a lysergic stomp. The riffs were absolutelty devastating; it's hard to believe that such grand, crushing sounds could be acheived with the simple formula of a pick hitting a few strings. If a blind individual were present at the show today, they'd probably think fucking Armageddon arrived.

Ah, another aspect of this band which I must address: The vocals.

I admit it. I was one of those dudes who deep down felt that there would be no chance in hell that a woman would ever manage to pull off some Lord Worm-esque vocals or some Silencer-shrieks, well. I mean, the only female metal vocalists that ever get recognition are Otep and that chick from Arch Enemy, both of whom are quite subpar. So going with that, my views in that area remained pretty consistent throughout high school.

And tonight is where reality just pimpsmacked me, WITH the baby powder.

Check this: some of the most tortured, disparaged, morbid shrieks, slicing through the dark from an undetermined direction. Whoever or whatever is the source of this must be either criminally insane, or decided to listen to Stalaagh and Wormphlegm back-to-back while they were smoking Salvia. Maybe both. All I know, is that Salome's vocalist Kat (who has lent her voice to Agoraphobic Nosebleed) are among one of the fucking best I have heard in a long time. As I'd mentioned earlier, I was in a particularly deep state of psychotropic meditation, so the only time I laid my eyes upon the band themselves happened to be the time that I astral projected briefly. So I only found out that those sickeningly great vocals were from a chick after their set had ended, and goddamn did it make things all the better. I never thought I'd see the day when diSEMBOWELMENT would lose their spot as my absolute favorite band and be tied with a little-known female-fronted sludge/doom trio from Virginia.

SALOME FUCKING WIN!

Check them out now if you haven't already!

http://www.myspace.com/salomedoom


WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM

Magnificent, shamanistic soundscapes intricately crafted via time-stretching tremolo picked riffs soaked in everlasting melancholy in a crystal clear stream flowing during Spring and the howls of the sad souls of the Earth.

That is the essence of Wolves In The Throne Room. The band describe their sound as "purifying black metal" or "transformative black metal", titles which could not be more accurate in their descriptions. Being that I was pretty much the only person who decided to break away from the norms of headbanging and moshing, calmly sat through their set and allowed their purifying sounds to wash over me, cleansing me as I sat paralyzed in a shamanistic trance. (The next few parts are all hypothetical... -coughcoughshiftyeyes-) I decided to kick it up a notch by pulling out my trusty one-hitter pipe (lovingly nicknamed Quistis), filled it with some particularly high-grade cannabis which I'd ascertained from a friend while I'd been waiting on line, raised the flame to it, and inhaled profusely. Seconds turned to minutes, turned to days, to years, for the longer I held in this cannabyssmal voidvapor, the more it seemed that the DXM was mercilessly dropkicking my existence, and judging by the intensity that this particularly bleak yet tranquil dirge was encompassing me in, I knew that the next pull would be what many would call 'the point of no return'.

Fuck it.

I exhaled, and as the fumes eventually cleared out, so had my mind. I existed, not as myself, but as just... to make it short, I experienced ego death while listening to Wolves In The Throne Room, and I couldn't have been any happier.

The material they played I believe was off both Diadem of 12 Stars as well as Two Hunters. Though I have no complaints, I would have liked to have seen them play through the entirety of their Black Cascade material akin to the show they did at Death By Audio in Brooklyn a year or so back where they played the entire Two Hunters album. As with the previous band, Wolves' sound was particularly rich, full, complete, and definitely fucking loud. I still can't feel my body as I'm typing up this review.

This is music to meditate to in conjunction with hallucinogens, most definitely.

http://www.myspace.com/wolvesinthethroneroom


SHRINEBUILDER

Supergroups. You've heard the term before; it usually entails a few popular musicians coming together to 'collaborate' and effectively become this awesome force which would not have been had the alliance not been made. Up until this point the only "supergroup" I'd really listened to was Twilight (a black metal band which consisted of members from Leviathan, Draugar, Krieg, Nachtmystium, Xasthur, Isis and The Atlas Moth) and continued on with the mentality that most attempts will result in nothing more than bland cheesiness and utter fail, and the idea of a supergroup only sounds good on paper.

For the second time this night, I was proven wrong.

Melvins percussionist Dale Crover, Sleep/Om bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros, St. Vitus/Obsessed vocalist/guitarist Scott "Wino" Weinrich and Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Scott Kelly.

Take out the bongs, kiddos. THIS is truly the epitomy of stoner doom metal. THIS is the only stoner doom you'll ever need. Sludgey riffs interwoven with halcyonic melodies and an ethereal sort of vibe are the only tools these guys utilize to build their aural shrine. Oh, and I'm assuming entheogens. Lots and lots of entheogens. And by alot, I mean a whole football fields worth of psilocybin mushrooms and cannabis and salvia and maybe some DMT too. Stylistically, they are similar to Om the most but have a much more distinct roughness to them, with plenty of headbangable moments arising quite often amongst the meditant soundscapes they create. Get a hold of their debut album ASAP, you won't be dissapointed!!

http://www.myspace.com/shrinebuildergroup

All in all, this was an extraordinary fucking show. Perfect line-up, perfect sound, awesome people, awesome trip, and a day which should damn well be in the history books. Fuck all this Lady GaGa and Soulja Boy bullshit. This is real music.

Special thanks to Lauren Jackcon, the alleged individual who organized this event from what I could gather. Thank you for turning what would've been an otherwise dull Thursday into one of the most kick-ass nights of the millenia. \m/

Update: Here is another review of the show by my very good friend and soon-to-be writer for the Lunatic Pandora Webzine, Stephen! Much more informative if I do say so myself and another testament as to how fucking amazing this night went: http://anetherealguitaristspath.blogspot.com/2010/03/salome-wolves-in-throne-room.html