WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM - Celestial Lineage CD review

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM - Celestial Lineage CD
Southern Lord
Genre: Indie Rock/Post Something or Other
Rating: 1/5

One of the finer moments from 2009 was seeing all of the uber hip music critics get their panties in a wad over the WITTR's Black Cascade. The Northwestern granola chewing hippies had done the unthinkable. They released a black metal album that actually contained traditional black metal riffs and (gulp) harsh vocals that sounded authentic. To the members of that limp wristed crowd not only was it worse than being slapped in the face (by a man). But it was as if some corpse painted faced artist carved the likenesses of Fenriz, Varg and Abbath onto the side of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. Since that horrible day these (choose one: gray, beige or pink) metal fans had to find solice in whatever that bastion of everything metal, the Village Voice, shoved into their faces and instructed them to suck on. Unfortunately all they got were luke warm versions of WITTR, shit covered shoegazer wimps or (as in last year) a watered down accessible version (if you compare it to their early stuff) of AGALLOCH. Thankfully for those uber hipsters they still had Lady Gaga to fall back on for their extreme (?) musical pleasures. As for me I thought Black Cascade was a good release and it's effect on the indie rock losers who are slumming in the metal music scene was an extra bonus. Fortunately I understood that it was simply a burp on the band's part. Listening to Celestial Lineage shows that not even a bath could totally wash away the Weaver brother's faux eco-spirituality (they didn't ride bicycles on tour or row a boat to Europe for Roadburn a while back) nor their mushroom high induced avant garde pretentiousness.

The indie rock losers and hipster retards, who in the past piled up the unwarranted hype on WITTR, will at first be confused about this new one (an added insult to their already confused lives) since the band provides more song titles then you can count using one hand. They will now have to pull the other one out of their buddies' ass in order to correctly count. Celestial Lineage might provide seven tracks in all but on closer inspection two of them, "Permanent Changes in Consciousness" and "Rainbow Illness" are technically short worthless instrumentals with reverberated moans by guest Aaron Turner of ISIS fame. The bulk five cuts on here will no doubt have the indie rock losers and hipster retards on their knees with mouths open like they did with 2007's Two Hunters. For the rest of us extreme types, who thought Black Cascade wasn't a bad release for a couple of non black metal liberals pussies, this is the type of release you may not wanna be seen with. This release opens in traditional WITTR pre-Black Cascade fashion with "Thuja Magus Imperium" which starts off with some ambient noise followed by the return of the female vocals. I know the indie rock losers and hipster retards wish it was really Nathan Weaver showing his feminine side but no it's really a woman's voice. All of that nonsense finally gives way to some lack luster blackness which builds up near the end. It's like having a glass of milk with a teaspoon of coffee added. After a stupid instrumental there's "Subterranean Imitation" which follows a similar pattern as the opener's except it's shorter. If I didn't have to review Celestial Lineage I might have yanked it out at this point.

The latter half of this release starts off with another pathetic instrumental followed by "Woodland Cathedral" which could just as easily been an instrumental if you took out the female vocals. In their downtime between releases the Weaver brothers must have been trying to figure out how to weave parts of Two Hunters with Euro-centric goth influenced power metal. Answer they did and it sounds like what you would imagine the entrance music to a Hot Topic store would be in Olympia, Washington. One question, are these two female vocalists (Jessika Kenney & Faith Coloccia) who appear on Celestial Lineage sleeping with the Weavers or are they just two broads they found hanging outside of the opera house dressed like Broom Hilda's? Whatever the case the finale of this thing ends with two over ten minute cuts. The first of which, "Astral Blood", is the most palatable cut on here since it's less polarizing. Unfortunately (or is it?) the last one "Prayer of Transformation" had me wondering if the cut was about transcending from flesh to spirit or what goes through the mind of a tranny prior to going under the knife in the operating room. Either way what the duel conceived as a haunting end turned out to really be an ethereal fart. I don't know what is worse the music of Celestial Lineage or the pre-release banter by the indie rock loser critics who harp and gripe about WITTR not being taken seriously as legitimate black metal. Hey if you place your selves in the lofty confines of balloon headed hipster retard-ism. Don't start whining like babies when real black metal fans don't wanna accept you. Celestial Lineage is proof positive that WITTR are (choose one: gray, beige or pink) metal but not very black.

Label: http://www.southernlord.com

Official: http://www.wittr.com/