Black Cascade, the third album from Wolves In The Throne Room, is truly epic stuff, clocking in at four superb monolithic compositions. For me it ticks all the black metal boxes: big guitar riffs, big keyboard parts, triplets galore, and tempos that run from the majestically slow to death blasts and back again. Black Cascade is symphonic, but not as furious as, say, Emperor. Nor do Wolves In The Throne Room vanish into some kind of nasty neo-pagan Tolkeinesque kitsch favoured but some modern black metal bands.
Black metal has come a long way from the good old bad old days of church burnings, inter-band killings, and one dimensional road drill death blast. Its a whole lot more accessible and, well, musical. In the 90s a drum machine set to maximum b.p.m. and a sleazy distortion pedal would suffice, but things have changed. Wolves In The Throne Room have made a magnificently crafted album: a kind of evil twin of progressive metal. Every bit as epic in musical ambition and size, but darker, harder, faster, and plain evil. Darkthrone like describing their sound as cold. Yeah, cold is a good adjective for black metal, and Wolves In The Throne Room have made a damn cold album.
-Ap-
