Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Wolves in the Throne Room for SLUG Magazine, a local magazine here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was given permission to post it here on Probably Smug as well…

With raw production, blazing guitars, shrieking vocals and blasting drums, black metal has always purported an extreme display of individualism, making every effort to reject all things politically correct and socially acceptable. Like everything however, human beings have turned those sparks of individualistic expression into hackneyed, formulaic practices, which have become little more than parodies of themselves. It takes an overwhelming dose of praxis for this cycle to be broken. The somewhat reclusive members of Wolves in the Throne Room who hail from Olympia, Washington and are some of the few individuals who strive to break these patterns. Not only do they defy most typical black metal forms of tradition, but also black metal culture as a whole. “We have no intention of contributing anything to traditional black metal. The orthodox thinking involved in the construction of traditional black metal is repugnant and stifling” Rick (no last name given) states.

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