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.
