The sun pours down like honey

In fog-heavy terrain, and after acceptance of repetition as ritual, time loosens its grip when Black Cascade's sustained condition of being unfolds and crowns Wolves in the Throne Room as the shining emblem of Cascadian black metal ideology. It is entirely possible even the band itself hadn't realized its difficult task to put together its next work after the monumental second album Two Hunters (2007), still considered today as one of the highest pillars of the atmospheric black metal scene - and still, Black Cascade carries its unique strength. 

Even at the time of the genre's biggest rise, this record was relatively more straightforward than what the band had released before, as there’s no apparent experimentation as in the Malevolent Grain EP of the same year, or female clean vocals as in the previous full-length albums. Apart from a short ambient section in “Ex Cathedra” and an ethereal, acoustic guitar part in “Crystal Ammunition”, Wolves in the Throne Room mostly advances with layers of tremolo guitar stacking like wet leaves, percussion pulses and wraithlike vocals in characteristically long compositions that require ceremonial patience.  

It all feels so distant, and even when the moments of blast arrive, they feel inevitable and strangely calming. Most melodic phrases repeat themselves to the point of uniformity, and the band’s refusal to foreground any single element is its greatest strength, or its clearest limitation, depending on where you land on it. Black Cascade is not without uneven terrain, and risks slipping into inertia here and there, but above all I admire its physicality and sincere presentation, as well as its central conceit of black metal as communion.  

It’s striking how little Black Cascade cares about the listener’s comfort. Even if you deservingly believe in the magnitude of the band’s previous (or later) catalogue, there are instances of magnificence here too, e.g. in the opener “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog”, which is one of my favorite tracks from them even today. With no sense of posturing and operating on a quieter, more insidious frequency, the album may not be the first to come up in lists or discussions about Wolves in the Throne Room, yet it endures on its own terms.