"Celestite Mirror"

Long tracks and slow builds have been near-constants for Wolves in the Throne Room, the Pacific Northwest band that helped push United States Black Metal to wider recognition. As you listen to “Celestite Mirror”, the debut track from their forthcoming fifth album, Celestite, you might keep expecting for the hammer to drop, for the black metal to rush in. But don’t hold your breath: Celestite follows in the grand black metal tradition of trading blast beats and suffocating guitars for pensive synths and slow motion.

For “Celestite Mirror”, Wolves in the Throne Room build from an eerie drift of synth glow and gentle bass-drum booms into a Vangelis-sized organ roar. Ahead of the halfway mark, they back into a Manuel Gottsching-like series of flickers and clicks, dispersing the darkness they once conjured. They manage a series of heavy-pawed doom riffs toward the end, but they offset the heaviness with airy synths and flutes, getting closer to Dark Side of the Moon outtakes than Under a Funeral Moon.

Celestite is out July 8 via the duo's own Artemisia Records.