Forlorn Visions: Wolf King Perceives the "Wandering Soul" (Music Video Premiere)
Wolf King‘s new album The Path of Wrath is assuredly a blackened offering — that’s made clear in the opening moments of their latest single “Wandering Soul” as a snakelike tremolo motif wraps itself around a blast beat. But there’s much more than that ahead: hardcore, doom, and death metal soon pierce the shroud, expressed in a blend of nuanced riffs and sheer power. Nominally operating under the banner of blackened hardcore, the Bay Area band’s sound has grown multi-tendrilled, stretching out and uniting a larger swath of the musical landscape in chilling shadow.
These facets are locked together into a delicate balance: momentum built through speed is deposited into well-timed slowdowns, and melodic riffs are counterbalanced by crushing dissonance. “Wandering Soul” is a window into this fusion, seeming to engage your whole heavy metal brain as it sends it down a trail of darkened thoughts. We’re premiering the music video for the track, suitably packed with fearful mystery.
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Flickering visuals topped with a film grain and a black-and-white forest set the tone for the video, establishing a certain level of hopelessness right at the beginning. Intercut with psychedelic snapshots and hallucination-like visions of snakes and skulls, what appears to be a desperate flight turns into something more as a boundary is encountered — a ritual, perhaps, or a transformation. Actually, as I re-watched it, those early visions started to seem like omens of the video’s conclusion. Like any good music video, its storyline crosses over into the meaning behind the song, creating its own tale to enrich it.
The band explains the song’s concept:
“Wandering Soul” is a tale of passing from this existence, and how our souls will forever wander among the living. We seek the light to take us to our final resting place, but we can never grasp it.
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The Path of Wrath releases March 5th via Prosthetic Records.
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