Black Metal has always been a genre that I wish I was more into, but always feel like I missed the train. The old guard of “must-know” first and second wave of Scandinavian black metal bands laid their glory records when I was still a wee lad in the metal world. Now that I am older and more steeped in various extreme metal genres and subgenres, it feels almost tedious to go that far back into the archives to dig up the true-kvlt bands and their classic records. That isn’t to say that I am completely averse to the genre. I favorably reviewed the newest Marduk record HERE, and am quite partial to flavors of symphonic black metal and the modern iterations of the genre. I am forever trying to broaden my horizons when it comes to “trve” black metal, and that led me to pick up the newest 1349 record.

Hoo boy, 1349 has been around for almost 20 years, and unfortunately NOT since the year 1349. The band draws its name from the year of the infamous Black Plague that ravaged their country of Norway bringing about the end of its Golden Age. Nevertheless, their latest record The Wolf and The King is their eighth studio record since their first in 2003, following 2019’s The Infernal Pathway. Truth be told, this is my first foray into this band’s catalog, so I approach with a wary eye and fresh ears.

Of the many, many iterations that Black Metal has taken through the decades, there still remains that ardent set that casts away most bells and whistles and digs into the more straightforward leanings of the genre. The overall impression of The Wolf and The King is that 1349 is not trying to reinvent the wheel, or re-invert the cross, so to speak. The version of black metal presented here is as classic Norwegian black metal in the likes of older Satyricon, with some whispers of Emperor, and even borrowing some of the bombastic elements from mid-career Behemoth.

Tracks like “Inferior Pathways”, “The Vessel and The Storm“, and “Obscura“ do get the black blood pumping, with their push-forward pacing, plenty of blast beats, and double bass work, along with a surprising amount of melodic riff arrangements going beyond the tremolo-picked minor chords that litter much of black metal as a trope. The solos on “Inferior Pathways” are also a welcome surprise, maybe less so for fans of the band for whom this is a staple, but as a newcomer, any guitar solo, let alone ones as technical as these gets a special mention in the black metal contest.  Tracks like “Inner Portal” and album closer “Fatalist” try to throw in some melo-doom trappings with its chunkier pacing, before diving back into regular blast-beat fare.

Something about the majority of the runtime of The Wolf and The King grated on me and took me a few listens to fully wall with. To someone new to the band’s songwriting, many of the arrangements that 1349 craft seem jarringly clashing. Adding the mid-focused rawer guitar tones, many of the riffs seemed more random rather than following a traceable melody that a listener can anchor to. Even with many end-to-end listens of the record, I failed to remember any particular riff or arrangement that I could then place to a track and keep as an earworm to remember the record by. Perhaps this is yet another facet of being new to this band, but the seeming randomness and incoherence of the songwriting elements felt extremely off-putting to me, in a genre already a stone’s throw away from being jarring to most listeners.

The Wolf and The King failed to capture my attention, with a smattering of enjoyable sections amid many chaotic and jarring segments that yielded an overall forgettable and jarring experience. I may attempt to give 1349’s back catalog a chance, by virtue of being a veteran band in the scene, but their newest record isn’t inspiring much confidence that this band’s version of black metal is for me.