Some people have a knack for watching, reading or listening to something once and being able to endlessly quote back what they have experienced; from hit TV show on HBO to excerpts from a newspaper article. I am in no way one of these archivists, even choice quips from Will Ferrell films won’t lodge themselves in my grey matter (which is arguably more of a blessing), and I often have to resort to a more primal method of passing judgement on things which comes more naturally to me; how it made me feel.
Like all of the albums crafted by Wolves In The Throne Room, Celestial Lineage deserves to be treated with reverence and respect and invokes emotions that stay with you. The only way to fully appreciate the majesty of this kind of music is to listen to the album in its entirety, in one sitting, without interruptions. Blasting it through Christmas cracker earphones whilst trying to buy a microwave dinner from a self-checkout machine under the unforgiving lights of your local supermarket will not do it justice, and really negates the entire intent and purpose of its beautifully harsh ambience. Given the chance, Celestial Lineage can transport you away from concrete tower-blocks, far from crowds of agitated businessmen and into a realm of hazy natural half-light where your semi-conscious mind wanders freely.
But Celestial Lineage is not an escape from reality. For me it is more of a mental venture into lonely forests and echoing valleys, a simpler life without industry and mechanisation that it is still possible to find amongst the seven billion people inhabiting our planet, but is increasingly rare. It probably helps that brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver practice what they preach by living on a self-sustainable farm just outside of Olympia, recording all of their music with vintage equipment and promoting analogue live recording in an age of looping and cutting. The sound that this creates is one of natural ferocity, almost as if they were not playing equipment that relies on electricity at all.
It seems like sacrilege to pick apart an album like this, and almost impossible anyway as what does stick in your head is less catchy hooks and more like a musical interpretation of the shivering, foggy memory that lingers when you think you’ve seen a ghost. Therefore, despite abrasively blast-beat-ridden sections on certain songs, Subterranean Initiation probably being the most classically ‘black metal’ for example, the transition and build up to these sections from as little as the repeated scraping of a metal implement on stone is liquid enough that by the time you are feeling the weight of hurricane screams and swirling distortion, they seem perfectly organic and necessary. Moments that do stick however are the haunting female vocals opening ‘Thuja Magus Imperium’ and the church-bell chiming riff of nearly six minutes into ‘Astral Blood’ which is so perfect I am near mentally winded every time I hear it.
If Celestial Lineage had been released before summer I doubt this would have been my album of the year. It lends itself so well to frost-bitten winter months and begs to be listened to either on top of a rain-lashed rocky outcrop in the Yorkshire Dales, or when you’ve just back inside and wrapped your face around a cup of tea. If I could cocoon myself in moss and lichen and hibernate until the first bluebell protruded through the melting snow with Celestial Lineage soundtracking my comatose visions, I would.