The world is moving so fast these days and so many things are changing rapidly. Sometimes it’s dizzying. Luckily, one thing that hasn’t changed, however, is Norway’s 1349. Their latest opus from the grim and frostbitten North is entitled The Wolf and the King and it’s exactly what you’ve come to expect from these masters of the macabre.
Black metal, in more recent years, has morphed and mutated into a wealth of different varietals. No longer delegated to the confines of Scandinavia, music in the genre has presented itself in a significant number of different avatars. These might fall under the labels blackgaze, black ‘n’ roll, symphonic and so on. 1349, on the other hand, is none of those. Having cut their teeth back in 1997, their brand of true Norwegian black metal was built on blistering speed and filth. They never looked back.
The Wolf and the King, picks up just where 2019’s The Infernal Pathway left off. Think of it as a back-to-basics black metal that will remind listeners of the particularly dirty and rugged sound of the early 1990’s (thankfully though, with better production). Vocalist Ravn tells us, “I didn’t like the direction that black metal took in the mid part of the ’90s…It started losing everything that I liked about black metal—the grimness, the eeriness, the primal emotions that captivated me and brought me into that sphere. You had all these synthesizer-based bands dressing up in pirate shirts and looking like goths. It ruined something that I truly hold close to my heart.”
The Wolf and the King, as a concept for the title, comes from the world of alchemy. The story goes that the wolf devours the king, the wolf is then devoured by flames and a new king rises from the ashes. The band views this a metaphor for personal development and being the best you can be. Without this, the individual doesn’t grow, but rather dies and never gets arisen from the ashes.
“Inner Portal” is a signature 1349 track, with a ridiculous amount of double bass at the feet of drummer extraordinaire Frost (Satyricon). There is some nuance, however, as well, with some interesting time changes and different vocal styles from the throat of Ravn.
“Ash of Ashes” is a thrashy cut with lots of speed and massive riffs. The song itself is about the story of a layer of ash that covered the earth some 12,000 years ago. The ash, it is believed, comes from a meteorite that struck the earth during the Ice Age. Ravn tells us, “It melted a lot of the ice, which is where the Great Flood came from. The Great Flood is in the Bible, but it was written about in every ancient culture. The theory is that it washed away a lot of other ancient cultures that held a higher intelligence level than those that were found after the flood. So, it possibly set human civilization back many thousands of years.”
“Shadow Point” is classic 1349 and harkens back to the band’s more recent work on records like Massive Cauldron of Chaos as well as the Infernal Pathway. The song is about two stars revolving around each other with the smaller one consuming the larger one.
Other cuts like “Fatalist,” and the somewhat groovy album opener “The God Devourer” are going to endear any long time 1349 right from the first listen.
The Wolf And The King is a record with no surprises. It’s pure 1349 and pure black metal the way it was meant to be. Mixed and recorded by longtime collaborator Jarrett Pritchard, this newest LP will undoubtedly scratch the itch.
