Wolves in the Throne Room – Celestial Lineage

Diadem of 12 Stars was a serious shot in the arm for USBM, a swirl of angelic chants and infernal shrieks; since then, Wolves in the Throne Room have alternately veered from one side of that spectrum to the other. Their fourth full-length sees them taking a stab at recapturing the balance they achieved on their debut, yet it doesn’t quite hit the mark.

Behemothian opener Thuja Magus Imperium sets the stakes in predictable fashion with alternating beauty and blastbeats in approximately 1:2 ratio, seemingly the rule of thumb for WitTR here as the rest of the album adheres to it until, suddenly, Astral Blood strikes. When its main riff fades in, your gut tells you something special is coming and by Lucifer’s beard is it a doozy, an epic of glorious melodies and demonic shrieks that’s like a biopic of black metal itself. More’s the shame that the rest can’t be so interesting.