Wolves in the Throne Room - “Black Cascade” Review
Wolves in the Throne Room. Black Cascade . 2009. 4.5 stars
"What we’re trying to do with our music is express an ancient, transcendent spirit. It’s based on the notion that as modern people we’ve lost a connection with a deep and transcendent source of wisdom that I think our ancestors had a much easier time coming in contact with. That lack of connection to this ancient transcendent spirit leads to a great deal of alienation, neurosis and sociological dysfunction. So our music is an attempt to re-awaken a connection to those sorts of feelings, those sorts of energies ". - Aaron Weaver, drummer, Wolves in the Throne Room
If it weren’t for the fey and materialistic stewards of our popular culture, bands like Wolves in the Throne Room might be widely recognized as masters of an increasingly powerful art form. Just as landscape painters of the 19th Century had romanticized the sublime and the terrifying in their natural surroundings, black metal artists reinvigorate fear and veneration of the wilderness and its mysteries. While the urban centers of the West produce sounds of cold comfort and accessibility, this band tears up such notions and drags the listener into the rain-soaked, mud-caked fray.
On their latest opus, WITTR, build on the atmospheric aesthetic that made Diadem of 12 Stars and Two Hunters so compelling. However, their sound is much more raw and immediate this time around, as the band moves away from ornamental post-rock experimentation to record an album more akin to their blistering live performances.
"Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog", referencing the triumphant painting by Caspar David Friedrich, hits the forest floor running, as the pummeling blast beats quickly hypnotize. Once the trance begins to set in, climbing guitar riffs provide a haunting lift as sorrowful vocals growl and shriek with reckless abandon. The combination of these elements becomes ritualistic, as the guitars and drums merge into a wall of sound, blackening out the sky like yawning pine trees. At the 8:30 mark, the band hits their final stride, with a stunning percussive break that lines the winding tremolo riffs. We’ve come to a country road, isolated and hidden, stretching past the granite hills as the sky turns an ominous, witching-hour orange.
"Ahrimanic Trance" goes deeper into the darkness, as the raging guitars bleed into each other, producing haunting, gloomy drones. The symphonic lift this produces is strange and transient, borrowing a page from Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse and stretching it out into something more organic and subdued.
"Ex Cathedra" features the harshest vocals on the album, rasping under waves of distortion as the percussion continues its relentless barrage. At the halfway point, the song dissolves into dark ambient, with natural, airy drones and ghostly keyboards. This passage then gives way to more aggressive riffs that once again bring us back to familiar black metal violence.
"Crystal Ammunition" is the album’s final and longest track that spares no time in launching into a shamanic trance. On what is arguably Black Cascade ’s strongest piece, the band is incredibly tight and cohesive as they produce a fluid torrent of blast beats and tremolo riffs. This is WITTR at their most traditional, as the sound is direct, uncompromising and faithful to the atmospheric pillars of the black metal genre. The song is later interspersed with calm arpeggios, distant static and and chilling ambiance, rounding out an epic and frightening journey.
While those accustomed to the inventive use of female vocals and post-rock crescendos may decry their absence on this album, they should welcome WITTR’s return to their blackest of roots, where their sound is more direct and unforgiving. Granted, there are still many winding paths to found on this trance-inducing album. It may not be as ground-breaking as its predecessor Two Hunters , but the Black Cascade is still a masterpiece of USBM that oozes atmosphere and inspiration. This work, like the greatest works of the genre, is full of blood and soil, and draws out ancient feelings that we have either feigned or neglected. Step into the precipice.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:05 am
I’ve never heard Wolves in the Throne Room, but am going to have to check this one out.