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Black Cascade makes it a little harder to just sink into the gloom, but the payoff is hearing Wolves become a more thoroughly powerful metal act.
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The fact is that Black Cascade is half victory lap and half turf statement: it hones in on their strengths without sacrificing originality; it pays off magnificently on all the chances they’ve taken in the past; it is fucking brutal; and it is another high water mark in the band’s catalogue for the New Wave of American Metal.
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In fact, so powerful has their music become that when all’s said and done, we could care less about the band’s tree-hugging tendencies, what the lyrics are, or just what the hell that dude in the leggings is in the album’s elaborate artwork; we’re far too busy being awestruck by the music.
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MojoBlack Cascade meshes razor-throated fundamentals with panoramic sweep, its four thunderous riff odysseys wreathed in soulful desolation. [May 2009, p.109]
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Black Cascade is impressive enough to vault Wolves into the top ranks of the highly idiosyncratic U.S. black-metal scene, allowing them rub shoulders with such standard-bearer bands as Nachtmystium and Absu.
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Black Cascade should be taken for what it is: fodder for the band's increasingly heralded live show and, at its simplest, a strong output in an increasingly stagnant, attention craved US black metal scene.
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UncutAt its peaks, it remains bracing in its intensity. But between climatic passages defined by Nathan Weaver's hoarse roar and stern batteries of kickdrum, the band seems to recede into misty, ambient washes that are engaging in their heavy melancholy. [Apr 2009, p.105]
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All of Black Cascade pounds away with a similar notion for four tracks and 50 minutes, offering four black metal tides that occasionally shift into some texturally bankrupt, wintry drone.