When Oregon’s Agalloch first appeared in 1999 with Pale Folklore and its haunting blend of folk and black metal, the metal community quickly drew comparisons to now-landmark releases like Ulver’s Bergtatt and Opeth’s Orchid. At the time, we all knew how special the album was, but I don’t think we sensed how iconoclastic the band would become.
In the decade since, and with only three albums and a handful of EPs, Agalloch has now become a common reference point themselves, showing up in reviews of Finland’s October Falls, Russia’s The Morningside and the UK’s Fen and Wodensthrone, among others. Most impressive of all, Agalloch has done this while subtly shifting and evolving their sound with each release, from the proto-black/folk of the debut to the monochrome, crystalline clarity of The Mantle to the warm and burnished hues of Ashes Against the Grain. All undoubtedly Agalloch, but all unique in their own right. And now, with the fourth release, Marrow of the Spirit, Agalloch changes yet again. This time, it’s less of a evolution than a return to their core, cutting into the bones and scraping at their marrow.
After the ambient, cello-backed opener “They Escaped the Weight of Darkness,” (featuring Grayceon cellist Jackie Perez Gratz), the sky opens up and erupts with “Into the Painted Grey” – the kind of raw and rangy black metal that made us all take notice of Pale Folklore in the first place. Yet Agalloch has never sounded this aggressive or furious, from Haughm’s craggy snarl to the scrambling, violent tremolo of the guitars to new drummer Aesop Dekker’s (Ludicra, and the excellent Cosmic Hearse music blog) muscular and frenzied percussion. Wolves in the Throne Room take note, there’s a rival beast patrolling the damp forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Follow-up “The Watcher’s Monolith” sounds like more recent Agalloch, with a fuller-bodied tone and a more languid pace. It too cranks to a full gallop at times, surefootedly navigating through flickering patches of shadow and light. Haughm’s chant-like clean vocals make a triumphant return here, though they’ve been submerged beneath the music – an artful effect. Later in the album, “Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires” adopts the same warmer tones and smoother, more loping pace, seemingly inspired by the elastic thrum of Disintegration-era Cure.
As always, the music is rich with texture and nuance, with the band’s three guitarists employing a variety of stringed instruments to weave an intricate tapestry. This time out, the band also recorded entirely in analog on vintage instruments. The sound has an organic warmth to it, but it’s also weathered and warped, as if left out in the elements to splinter and crack. Many black metal bands have gone for a cold, dry sound, but this sounds brittle. You can almost imagine these guys crammed into a rickety shack somewhere on a lonely mountain, plugging in and then wailing away as the winds howl outside and the rain weeps down through the trees. (The album was actually recorded at Audible Alchemy Studios in Portland, Oregon).
However, much as I enjoy the return to Pale Folklore’s bleak and rustic tones, the band also brought back that album’s sometimes-meandering guitar solos (go back and revisit “She Painted Fire Across the Skyline Part II” to see what I mean). Both “Into the Painted Grey” and “Watcher’s Monolith” feature high-pitched solos twisting and ringing out above the thunder, and while this duality has always been a part of Agalloch’s sound, at times the tone is simply too keening and shrill to really mesh with the whole.
Luckily, all of that is forgotten by the time you’re swallowed in “Black Lake Nidstång” – a doom-sodden, 17-minute monster that’s the most epic and sorrowful thing that Agalloch has ever done. It’s also one of the metal must-hears of the year, although I suggest a quiet place or frame of mind to properly be carried away.
After a droning dirge of an opening, the song breaks into a careful stride, as if slowly picking its way around the stony shores of a isolated mountain lake. Haughm employs an eerie whisper instead of his usual rasp, which he’s done before, but never like this. I predict it won’t be the last whispered passage we hear in black metal for awhile, because it’s incredibly effective, especially with his tales of the spirits trapped beneath the ripples of the water. Tortured spirits, it would appear, as Haughm’s vocals break and shatter – not unlike early Burzum or …In the Woods. It’s a completely naked, genuine performance, and combined with the tragic howl of the music, terrifying as well.
As if that weren’t enough of an emotional crescendo, after that the song blooms skyward into a phantasmagoria of funereal synths and jewel-like vibraphone tones. Mind officially blown. Those who feared the band’s flirtations with electronics and ambiance on The White EP might take them further from black metal may bristle, but fear not. It may indeed be the least black metal moment the band has ever created, yet it forms the very core of the entire album, and comes off more like an hypnotic epiphany than anything else.
And that’s a good word for Agalloch – epiphany – for it’s that sense of secret truth, of gradual revelation and hushed reverence that has infused everyone of their albums, no matter what their palette may be. Just when you think you have a handle on this band, its ethic and approach, they reinvent themselves again, yet never lose sight of what made them unique in the first place. Marrow of the Spirit is an epiphany you will want to experience over and over, marveling at its exquisite craftsmanship while bracing yourself against its mad and beautiful chill.