Wolves' third album is a solid monolith of blistering brutality that will likely make black metal fans very happy. Unfortunately, the more melodically adventurous Malevolent Grain EP hinted they were capable of being much more than merely brutal. Black Cascade is not the album that I was eagerly hoping for at all, but I suppose Nathan Weaver must follow his dark muse to whatever sinister place it takes him. Maybe next time.
Southern Lord
This year's Malevolent Grain EP was a brilliant and brief distillation of everything that makes Wolves In The Throne Room a great band, so it is confounding and disappointing that their newest full-length is less melodic, features less dynamic variation, and is twice as long. Of course, they are still absolutely ferocious and heavy as hell, but Black Cascade offers little that their earlier albums didn't already do more compellingly.
"Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog" begins the album explosively with furious tremolo-picking, shrieking vocals, and a frenzied blast beat before shifting into a slower, more melodic interlude that uncharacteristically features a guitar solo (these guys are not big on frills). A lot more happens after that, which is the primary shortcoming of the album: no song is less than ten and half minutes long. I have no problem with extended song lengths, but I am afraid Black Cascade is not multifaceted enough to pull off such a feat. Frustratingly, the individual components of each song are often excellent, but their power is diluted by the endless back and forth between frantic intensity and mid-paced melodicism. The tempo and the actual notes may change, but the omnipresent amelodic throat-shredding vocals and distorted, frantically strummed chord progressions create an inescapable feeling of sameness.
"Ahrimanic Trance" follows essentially the same template, but with a much higher ratio of memorable parts to filler. Regrettably, it clocks in at over fourteen minutes, so it still overstays its welcome in spite of its many positive attributes. Nevertheless, there is an absolutely devastating section in which melancholy, elegant keyboards hover above the frenzied maelstrom and Aaron Weaver's drumming reaches almost jaw-dropping intensity that almost makes it all worthwhile. Unfortunately, the drums are the hapless victim of the second frustrating thing about Black Cascade: the production. Aaron Weaver is an absolutely stupefying drummer and probably could carry this album on his own, but he is hamstrung here by production that de-emphasizes the bass drum. His playing, while undeniably virtousic, is all snare and cymbal. A black metal album without rumbling double-bass is at a serious disadvantage as far as visceral, crushing intensity is concerned. Demonic mayhem and emasculation cannot co-exist.
The remaining two tracks do not stray much from what preceeded them, but offer up occasional welcome surprises regardless. For example, "Ex Cathedra" features some very effective dual-guitar harmonizing in the main riff, a mid-song ambient interlude, and an extremely cool outro. The closing track, "Crystal Ammunition" contains a somewhat dull acoustic guitar interlude, but later makes up for it with a lengthy and beautiful synthesizer and chorused guitar passage. Of course, both tracks are still very long, so there is a lot of unsurprising material as well.
Black Cascade is quite simply too much of a good thing (compounded by less than ideal presentation). There are dozens of great ideas strewn throughout this album, but their power is maddeningly diminished by lack of dynamic variety and overreachingly epic song-structures. While I am sure that I am not the target demographic for this album, I am also certain that the black metal genre is teeming with bands that are single-mindedly focused on speed and intensity and that the Wolves will have to be a bit more innovative and focused on songcraft than this if they want to maintain their place near the top of the infernal, blasphemous heap.
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