Paleowolf
Megafauna Rituals

Many neofolk and ambient artists try to delve into the past, attempting to connect the listener to more simple and turbulent ancestral eras of this third millennium, yet none venture as far as Paleowolf.

One might think that Africa is a continent with exceptional fauna, that the presence of such large mammals is confined to the cradle of humanity. It's not so. There was a time, before civilization, during the Quaternary, when our ancestors had to contend with huge mammals, immense herbivores, and super predators, and this happened wherever there were humans. These creatures seemed like divine manifestations, and small men who barely knew fire could only look on with reverence, cooperating to hunt those enormous proboscidians, cervids, bovids, taking significant risks to secure lasting food sources. They had to be careful not to encounter predators that could crush a man's skull with a swipe. Humanity has never experienced times as dangerous for the individual as its dawn, before writing, before cities.

Paleowolf seeks to rise as the undisputed king of tribal dark ambient; his fourth album is a majestic and imposing ode to the Paleolithic megafauna. "Megafauna Rituals" strives to provoke a sensation as close as possible to seeing a herd of Mammoths pass in the distance. We know animals like the Aurochs, the Dire Wolf, the Megaloceros only through cave paintings, skeletons in museums, TV, and books, but what must it have been like to see them live? What did a man feel, wrapped in a rough fur, seeing a deer with antlers three and a half meters wide? The fact is that even though these beasts have long been extinct, leaving only their bones behind, they still inspire fear and awe. Paleowolf's voice is like the howling of wolves, the bellowing of aurochs, the wailing of the wind, the growl of cave bears, it is the pressure, the drama caused by the struggle for survival, the drive to evolve, the war of all against all.

Atmosphere is everything, shamanic intonations follow reconstructions of the calls of great extinct animals, dense and oppressive soundscapes give way to percussion coming directly from a Paleolithic cave. One can't help but ask, "Where do I place myself in all this?", wondering what remains in the deepest abysses of one's mind from the experiences marked by the danger and uncertainty of one's most distant ancestors.

"Megafauna Rituals" is a perfect example of what every ambient record should be, a work capable of taking the listener's mind exactly where the artist wants.