Deep Eco-Metal

Delve far enough into heavy metal, and you’ll find environmentalists.

By Erik Davis
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007, at 1:44 PM ET
slate.com

After 20 minutes of driving around in the dark near Santa Cruz, I found the right road and pulled up in front of a cemetery. I was looking for a rock band called Wolves in the Throne Room, whose gig tonight was advertised as occurring “somewhere in the woods.” Stepping into the chilly evening, I slammed the car door and started walking down an unlit lane toward a forest of cypress and eucalyptus. Where the asphalt gave way to dirt, a scruffy kid with a lantern led me and a few others along trails and over streams. A sign asked us not to smoke, to turn off our cell phones, and to try to refrain from talking. Nobody asked me for any money.

Stumbling through the weeds, I came across 30 or 40 young folks gazing at a black-and-white film loop of ravens and ravaged forests that was projected onto a sheet pegged to a massive conifer. The crowd shuffled and stared and occasionally burped and giggled. Then we lumbered through the bushes toward a nearby clearing marked by a few antique hanging lanterns, a drum kit on a carpet, and a couple of amps and guitars. There was no stage, no risers, no proper lights. A massive tree limb stretched over the clearing, and a few people had clambered up for a better view, young gents with furry hats and Rasputin beards passing around bottles of nameless homebrew. Waves of ambient electronica began flowing out of an old analog synthesizer, merging with the groan of a nearby generator. After 15 minutes of this, three rather nondescript guys shuffled out of the crowd and took up their instruments.

Given the setting, you might think that Wolves in the Throne Room was some West Coast jam band or a freak-folk combo. But what these three fellows played was melancholic and often brutal black metal. READ MORE…