Clear purple shells cassette.
This is apparently a new project by a guy named M. Lehto, who is the instigator of a similar Atmospheric Black Metal band called October Falls, who have been toiling in the underground for a couple of decades now. This splinter project is so new it doesn't even have its own Facebook page, so there's precious little info to be found. If you imagine what an atmospheric, one-man Black Metal band with neofolk leanings would sound like, this is that exactly. Slow, moody, melodic, with a lot of shade to the riffs and space for piano and acoustic interludes. I like this, but it sounds like so many other bands of this type and does nothing at all to stand out even a little bit, that I can't rate it too highly. If you like this kind of stuff—Summoning, Dwarrowdelf, Sojourner, etc.—this will do fine, but there's nothing distinct about it.
Wooden Throne is a side-project of Mikko Lehto, which some fans of atmospheric black sound may recognize because he is the founding and only permanent member of October Falls. He also maintains another band, the funeral doom metal duet Burial Choir, with which he released this year the full-length “The Eucharist Of Martyrs”. At Wooden Throne, Lehto takes care of everything, as he did in the first six years of October Falls. It is an album that reminded me a lot of its main band, with a very important difference, however, since the ambient and neofolk elements are completely absent, which are an integral part of its course in the music scene so far. The Finnish multi-instrumentalist releases an atmospheric black metal album, full of amazing melancholic melodies and a frozen atmosphere created by the guitar riffs. The rhythms are from mid-tempo to doom, the black metal vocals have lot of depth as if they cover all the music and the atmosphere created by the keyboards make a record that personally had my entire attention from the first seconds. The production has an old-school approach, making the final result sound like it was recorded thirty years ago. Fortunately, this does not mean that it sounds bad as if it came out of a chewed tape, since the work that has been done is careful enough to bring out the feeling of another era but also to maintain a clear sound for the listener. The only negatives I can find with this album is that it only lasts a little over half an hour but also that in the five songs that are here, we find two small acoustic/orchestral tracks with the keyboards being the main protagonist, which I cannot say that they excite me. I think that a couple of additional songs would make it even better. But that does not change my initial opinion and that is that Lehto created an excellent atmospheric black metal album. Fans of October Falls but also of the most extreme moments of the mighty Agalloch, if you have not discovered it by now, don’t waste any time. Just listen to it once and like that you’ll want more and more.
WOODEN THRONE may be brand-new in name, but the creator behind the band is OCTOBER FALLS mainman Mikko Lehto. While that band has prolifically spanned a wealth of no-less-thrilling styles during the past 20 years, with WOODEN THRONE does Lehto get to focus on the spectral mysteries of the night and suitably create epic black metal of a most stargazing stripe. Granted, OCTOBER FALLS have spanned the more epic ends of black metal themselves, but where the forest is the spiritual/psychic plane for their creations, WOODEN THRONE's realm is more so the moon and cosmos, but no less informed by the forest: simply view the cover art to Under the Moon They Wander Until Fading Away, for cues.
Compact yet vast, the seven-song/33-minute Under the Moon They Wander Until Fading Away is an utterly engrossing experience. From its patiently measured tempos to its acute sense of space and layers of magisterial synth, from Lehto's impassioned performance to the powerfully kaleidoscopic production, WOODEN THRONE's first full-length work is one which harkens equally to the glorious 1990s and the undreamt future. Nostalgia and sadness are sensations which figure prominently here, but rather than mire the listener in drowning darkness, there's a paradoxically uplifting aspect to the album that gives it remarkable repeatability. As such, it encourages immersion across myriad activities, be it wandering within the forest, exploring dream states, or simply pondering life's impossible mysteries; WOODEN THRONE are nothing if not guides, such as Lehto has been with the legendary OCTOBER FALLS.
Under the Moon They Wander Until Fading Away is truly titled: WOODEN THRONE open up the beyond for those who dare to dream!
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