Black Metal band 1349 is committed to keeping that genre alive. Their newly announced album, The Wolf and the King follows that goal. Their eighth album sees the Oslo-based band applies their traditions to the global chaos of the 2020s. The new album arrives on the 11th of October 2024 from Season of Mist.
Vocalist Ravn explains:
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 album’s title comes from a classic alchemical allegory: A wolf devours a king. Then the wolf is devoured by flames, and a new king rises from the ashes.
Ravn explains:
When I first heard about alchemy when I was young, it was people turning metal into gold. Further down the road, through various literatures and magical practices, I realized that what you’re turning into gold is metaphorical. It’s about personal development, basically. You want to be the best you can be, and that’s what we try to do as well. We try to top ourselves, to kill our egos in order to grow as persons. If you don’t do that, you will die. You will not rise from the ashes.
Their latest single “Shadow Point” comes with a video.
Ravn comments on the track:
This one references the Star of Algol, or ‘the Demon Star’. It’s actually two stars that revolve around each other, and the small one is devouring the big one. Human beings have seen this star from early ages, and it has had many names over the years. It’s a known part of the magical world, so I wanted to include it in a song.
Recorded at Amper Tone in Oslo, Norway, and New Constellation R.M.P. in Orlando, Florida, The Wolf and the King was produced and mixed by Ravn and Jarrett Pritchard (Eulogy, Pulchra Morte), who also worked on their previous two albums. The lyrics were written by the band’s longtime writer, Svartalv, who has been working with 1349 for twenty years.
Jordan Barlow’s artwork for The Wolf and the King reflects the album’s chronological position in 1349’s discography.
Ravn explains:
This is our eighth album, and the artwork and lyrics are filled with references to this number of infinity. You can basically go on a quest finding references to the number in the artwork.
