Death.FM - Agalloch - The Mantle

#	Track Listing	Length	Played
01	A Celebration For The Death Of Man... Agalloch	2:24	26
02	In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion Agalloch	14:45	78
03	Odal (Instrumental) Agalloch	7:39	29
04	I Am The Wooden Doors Agalloch	6:11	55
05	The Lodge Agalloch	4:40	35
06	You Were But A Ghost In My Arms Agalloch	9:15	60
07	The Hawthorne Passage Agalloch	11:19	94
08	...And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth Agalloch	7:14	47
09	A Desolation Song Agalloch	5:08	40

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Reviewers Rating

2 reviews done for this album.

Agalloch - The Mantle

By:	Azdragar
Date:	23 May 2011
Rating:

In 1999 debuted this guys from Portland with the sublime Pale Folklore, an atmospheric "post-black" album, which received very good reviews, but generally received little recognition in the real metal. In 2001 an EP of mostly previously unreleased material, and now three years later, we finally enjoyed their second CD. You will immediately notice that the music is colorless lot than before. Acoustic guitars dominate the album and give it an especially cold and chilly with nature. The black metal vocals emphasize this again, though it more clean singing than on previous albums. Beautiful melodies, compelling love the attention, which you slowly sink into the dark and gloomy landscape of music. The songs are quite long and epic character. The album starts with an intro of two and a half minutes that immediately turns into the second song "In the Shadow of Our Pale company", a song that clocks almost fifteen minutes. The music spans several layers, are structurally well structured and the whole is beautifully into each other, sending all your time to complete one to do with the music. Partly because singing and variety of normal and black metal vocals with Opeth comparisons will soon be drawn. But where there is more technical Opeth, Agalloch sounds much more organic and 'natural'. The subtle use of experimental instruments like bells and whistles gives the album an extra dimension and will therefore receive a timeless quality.
Excellent Great Album. Highly Recommended: I Rate this ALbum 5/5

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Ethereal....

By:	ahsanimam
Date:	17 Jul 2015
Rating:

Agalloch are one of the few outfits who had managed to create their own distinctive tone and atmosphere. Haughm's creativity is not only reflected from the diverse use of instruments and effects but also from the lyrical theme that has created an ambience with meaning and concept. I have been the admirer of Agalloch for many years. I have listened many similar acts like them but the overall atmosphere, effects and multiple instruments use, Haughm's use of clean/raw vocals, concept behind each track and last but not the least the cold narcotic feeling I feel is just what I can't explain. Their music is not for mainstream, I can deliberately say.

"The Mantle" brought another masterpiece from Agalloch, Death in June & Godspeed inspired guitar blend is the foreground of this LP. Their influence from the filmography is reflected from "The Hawthorne Passage"; the influence from a folklore is much more reflected from "...and the Great Cold Death of the Earth" and from the deer skull chants on "The Lodge" and Nietzsche is reflected from "In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion"; the use of accordion & mandolin had brought a mellow tone in "A Desolation Song" and somewhat the sing-speak texture made this a little different from the other songs. Well, I was reading their interviews and they said they were actually portraying some images and wanted to express those via this album and each song is actually depicting its own story. Long passage of instruments mainly acoustics and leads are making a soothing and melancholy environment.

Their music varies from atmospheric black metal to post-metal and post-rock with progressive rock influence but they describe it simply as dark metal and yes they are dark and cold. A best companion on a frosty night with nocturnal silence everywhere. You just can't get enough of this album, I bet.

stompbox-talk:

Besides from the concept and other things, I had been remain curious about the use of effects that Haughm does and I got lucky to see his pedalboard on effectsbay.com and he said in the interview that his effects always give birth to songs mainly like the Nova Delay is behind “Ghosts Of The Midwinter Fires” which you can listen in the intro. Delay is the main secret behind many of his composition that's why he has three units of delay (MoogerFooger Analog Delay, the Boss DD-6 and the TC Electronic Nova Delay). The noticeable use of flanger can be listened in the mid of "In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion" and MXR Micro Flanger is behind it. A must read for any Agalloch admirer:
Signal chain of Haughm

Originally written for
Abyss of Salvation

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