We’re going to go out on a limb here: Olympia, WA’s Wolves in the Throne Room are easily the pre-eminent American eco-black metal band.

For those not already in the know, there’s been a emergence in the black metal world of a sort of “shoegaze” sound — much celebrated by indie rock nerds around the globe — found on albums from old hands like Enslaved as well as relative newbies of the nascent American black metal scene (see famous Alhambra, CA shut-in Xasthur). WITTR make such dark, My Bloody Valentine-style raging guitar buzz sounds from time to time, as well as switching between cookie-monster style grunt-growling and near-operatic arias of sometimes-singer Jamie Meyers. Plus they apparently live on an off-the-grid farm in the countryside. Arthur columnist Erik Davis talked to them about this for Slate back in 2007. Check out his interview here.

Where most Scandinavian black metallers are obsessed with, say, the outcome of 10th Century battles between Vikings and German Christian colonizers, WITTR are more concerned with pagan/environmental themes, adding a decidely fresh take on subjects usually dealt with in far more pastoral sonic palette. Epic jams like “I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots” and “Hate Crystal” are rife with brutal imagery — just imagine the soundtrack to an especially grim Derrick Jensen lecture, perhaps?

Add all these things up and you’ve got a black metal band that you can actually talk to non-black metal people about, without having them suggest you take your conversation over to their younger World of Warcraft obsessed sibling.

Wolves in the Throne Room’s excellent new EP Malevolent Grain was released this weekend on vinyl, with a CD version soon to come. Check it out at the WITTR online store. New album Black Cascade due out later this spring.

More WITTR after the jump …