Chicago/Minneapolis now-trio Wolvhammer have released two albums of riff-heavy blackened sludge (2010’s Black Marketeers Of World War III and 2011’s The Obsidian Plains, both of which are pretty excellent) but the first track to debut from the band’s forthcoming third LP, Clawing Into Black Sun, has a much more expansive feel than anything that precedes it. Even in the track’s crusty war-chant sections — but especially everywhere else — “Death Division” is spacious, somber, ringing with guitar tones that feel influenced by post-metal, Chicago-style USBM (Nachtmystium, Avichi), funeral doom … heck, goth, even. It’s a welcome and impressive evolution from a band who frankly always transcended the hybrid subgenre in which they worked. Listen.

Clawing Into Black Sun is out 7/8 via Profound Lore.