WOLVES' WINTER | Scriptorium Mag

I must confess that when it comes to Argentinean contemporary metal I need to dig more because, as an old-schooler, I was mostly into the 80s and 90’s heavy and thrash metal; and can bring up some glorious names like RATA BLANCA, HERMETICA, HORCAS, MALON, A.N.I.M.A.L, V8, LORIHEN, and many more that my memory forgets. However, there’s a very diverse scene nowadays and the band we will expose today caught my attention both musically and esthetically. WOLVES’ WINTER decided to direct their music towards black metal pathways 15 years ago, but let’s hear what “Beelzebuth”, the vocalist, has to say about the early days. “… The early stages started in 2007 when I had a goregrind band. Actually, WOLVES’ WINTER co-founder was the bassist in that band. It's an unknown band, we never got to record and release stuff, so it faded into nothing. Then, we dropped it and started with WOLVES' WINTER, which was named ABEZI-THIBOD in the beginning, but changed to the actual name later. So, we spent two years composing songs to record a demo, and we had our first live performance in 2010. It went really well (much more than we expected) and we started to perform several times a year thanks to that. We released the demo and a live recording at the same time…”

“Beelzebuth” continues, “…This November, we turn fifteen years of trajectory, with highs and lows as any band, but we think that our band started to grow exponentially since the release of the EP "Necrosophic Illumination". Our album was supposed to be released in 2012, but we've changed our lineup many times since then, and even re-recorded the album after being almost finished. We think that it was something meant to happen because our evolution in ten years was huge…”

Argentina, at least for me, is not known as a black metal export territory. That’s why any musical product that moves in that direction gets my attentive interest and my never-ending musical curiosity. WOLVES’ WINTER has opened a new portal for me, and I want to share it with all our readers. “… We're from Buenos Aires, Beelzebuth affirms, and here the metal scene is big, but not so much for black metal. Argentina has a lot of death metal or heavy metal bands, but just a couple of black metal ones. There were a lot of bands in early 2000, and good ones but most of them just vanished, so the scene got smaller. And the scene has been growing again since a few years back, slowly, but growing. Black metal is atypical here, to be honest. There are a lot of metal bands, but just a couple of black metal ones, it's a niche…”

WOLVES’ WINTER has a distinctive esthetic, and I am sure this denotes them and separates them from the pack. However, they are not musicians who stand out because of the way they get dressed on stage, the music is highly in debt with the old heavy metal gods, but they managed to incorporate some dark executions and esoteric content to blacken the sound. “… We have had that style since the beginning. Actually, our first photo shoot was with a tunic on November 22nd, 2008. But the reason we dropped the outfit in the early stages and used it only a couple of times until 2014 was due to the lineup instability. Our band members changed many times, so we didn't have the time to adapt and adjust to the idea. When we started to get more comfortable, we returned to the tunics. That was the initial idea because we talked about esoteric and occult-related stuff and wanted to transmit that, not only with the music but visually as well. Everything is related to live performances and rituals. We get the esoteric, necromantic, or spiritism themes from current 218, Left Hand Path, and black witchcraft in general. Only two of us are involved in "obscure subjects" but I think that actively, just me, Beelzebuth concludes…”

Unfortunately, when one gets into the band’s career you can see the ups and downs, the struggle that Beelzebuth mentioned before, especially in the recording aspect. They have released demos, EP’s, and a live recording but the first full-length “Qayin Coronatvs” came out in 2021, thirteen years after they formed. “…As we said before, the main reason was the constant fluctuation of members in all those years. The album was recorded almost 2 times before the final one was released, with different members every time. I think recording music is hard everywhere, but yeah, we've been in a constant economic crisis since I was born in Argentina, so to record and release an album, it's a privilege that just a few can get. But those years were the most chaotic for the band, we even almost split up in those years, but we kept fighting…”

Beelzebuth talks about the debut release. “…It's the culmination of an era and the beginning of a new one. All songs were composed in the early years. There are a few more that will be used in our next album that is in process already. And it's really an achievement signing with a label that has such power in distribution. There are just a few black metal bands that have an actual label in Argentina…”

WOLVES’ WINTER is actively involved in leaving a scar on the national scene and hopefully on the international one. They are conscious that the good old days should be an awesome reference to look back at, but there’s a lot to be done in the present days and they are working hard to achieve their goals. We can’t thank Beelzebuth enough to recreate the unknown metal scenario in Argentina, and more importantly, for allowing us to discover this band that I am recommending checking out. “…We have more responsibilities and reach now. We have to interact with our followers and producers constantly, so it's becoming bigger at this rate. The good old days will be always special, but if we want to achieve success, we must work hard and nonstop. We're finishing the songs for our next album, polishing five, and writing three more. We plan to record eight and release it in early 2024. We are editing our last gig that was recorded with four 4K cameras for a full live performance video and we plan to release it in a couple of weeks…”

Beelzebuth highlights what else is coming ahead. “… We need to work hard for our next chapter and get ready to share the stage with UADA in October, then, a final gig to close the year. We are very grateful for the support you give us every day, both by going to our shows and by buying our stuff. We will always give our best back and our hard work; we will always try to surpass what we have done previously. We also hope to visit other countries soon! May the black light of Qayin enlighten you! 218! ...”

Texts: Alex Sanchez

Photos: Band’s courtesy

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