A Dark Night Of Light
Wolves In Throne Room//
Chelsea Wolfe
Live Review//Photo Essay

Chelsea Wolfe’s set began with the hauntingly heartfelt ‘Movie Screen’, which the group has performed for the recently released Room 205 video series. The deceptively simple and short lyrics are repeated throughout the song’s entirety, gradually being joined by Chelsea’s vocal loops that swim and dance around the music. Dylan Fujioka’s precise drum work carried guitar slides and synth passages that slowly built the song into a cacophonous otherworldly drone folk piece that radiated a beautifully strange, almost palpable melancholic warmth. Getting into Chelsea Wolfe’s style of music (somewhere between Burzum, Selda Bagcan, Bob Dylan and the apocalypse) wasn’t difficult for me, being something of an avid drone and noise fan, but what really struck me was the band’s knack for blending horrendously grating or unsettling ambient noise that manages to mingle seamlessly with both bluesy rustic overtones and Chelsea’s own powerfully emotive vocal prowess. This is music about the horror of life, the anguish of love, and the beauty of death – music that inspires empathy through its sheer weight.

Aside from the more chaotic noise rock elements that occasionally gather enough strength to overpower the soft side of Miss Wolfe’s graceful sonic waltz, the relatively quiet and personal touches that dot Chelsea Wolfe’s soundscape seemed to successfully ensnare the vast majority of attendees. For a show whose patrons spanned the gap between typical artsy LA twenty-somethings and steely-eyed metal vets, all were equally ensnared by the band’s spellbinding doom folk offerings – a sea of eager eyes, receptive minds and attentive ears. Chelsea and the band worked their way through many of my favorite material from The Grime and the Glow and Ἀποκάλυψις, such as Mer, Halfsleeper, Tall Bodies and a few others, adding stylistic flair, emphasis, and expansions not present on the albums. I absolutely love when a band’s live performance outshines their already stellar recorded releases, and witnessing Chelsea Wolfe and her live accompaniment pour their hearts into crafting such uniquely bizarre music most definitely entitles them to that very accolade.

The anticipation filling the dingy bottom level of the Echo as Chelsea’s set ended was near suffocating. I suspect many in the audience had been patiently waiting quite some time for Wolves in the Throne Room to make their way this far south; the from the grungy urban sprawl of Los Angeles and its denizens providing a sharp juxtaposition between the quaint plot of Cascadian farmland the two brothers behind the band call home. Folks began the slow drive towards the stage, jockeying for a better position as the lights dimmed and the set change music, an intriguing blend of hissing noise, occult drone, and what I think was traditional Bavarian music, poured into the venue. As fog began lazily drifting in from out of view, the brothers Weaver emerged to carefully embellish the stage with various antique gas lamps and candles, the soft golden light dancing among the mighty drum kit before it.

Cauldrons of sage filled the air with their fragrant cleansing aroma as WitTR’s soundcheck came to a close. Pale blue light bathed the veiled figures on stage as rumbling feedback rolled through the Echoplex, which seemed to shrink in size when compared to the enormous presence the group had painstakingly crafted within it. The visage of animal guardians adorning the dimly lit tapestry wavered in the venue’s artificial breeze. It was at that point that I realized I was in the midst of something much larger than me – something much more akin to a shamanic ritual than a mere concert in the context most people would use the term. The lights went out, the guitars began their intro swells, fog enshrouded the newly cleansed space, and suddenly I was captured by the compelling unseen force of set opener Thuja Magus Imperium; a sonic hand extended outward in a gesture of invitation into the occult beauty of the natural world. In the face of such powerful sensory overload, I found myself awash with a sense of calm. The journey had begun.

Weak light pierced the darkness between the body and fretboard of both guitarist’s instruments, providing only enough illumination to clearly see their fretting hand dance rhythmically around the neck of the guitar in the encompassing shade. The furious blasting strikes of drummer Aaron Weaver provided the repetitive pounding percussion necessary to lose yourself in the mystic, ethereal world WitTR offered its audience a sample of with an almost organic fluidity. Nathan Weaver’s distinctive animalistic howls and shrieks lost none of their weight to the wave of noise emanating from the band’s instruments. The songs I was witnessing, which I’d been anticipating for months, began to meld into one seamless consciousness altering stream of sound. Applying names to individual tracks was quite futile and unnecessary at that point, as songs picked up and fell away from the persistent thrum of noise conducted by pure energy with the brevity of a shadow fleeing the light. It was as if the background drone of the earth itself was being channeled into an aural entity that hung like a dense mist from the very air of the venue. Completely immersed, my mind’s eye was filled with images of wild rivers, ancient forests, and the immensity of the universe.

For all of the enormous build up the beginning of their set had, the band played their final song, layed their equipment down, and walked off stage. There was no encore, nor were there bows or farewells, and so it was done. WitTR played for a full hour and a half, managing to tear through plenty of material from all four albums, but I as I opened my eyes and returned back to the small venue in downtown Los Angeles, time was a bit inconsequential. Many of the people around more wore similar dazed expressions on their faces as their minds exited the trance we were all placed under, once again confined to the physical space they inhabit. Music is a vessel of expression whose power and sway over the human psyche should never be underestimated.