The Mantle

Agalloch | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 13, 2002)
• Original Release Date: 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: The End Records
• ASIN: B00006FSST
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,550 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #15 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > Hard Rock & Metal

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning., February 21, 2003

By 

Lord Chimp (Monkey World) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mantle (Audio CD)

Any Opeth comparison is senseless and unfair. To me, Agalloch is strange marriage of Norwegian metal's halcyon elegy, seas of atmosphere, folk music, screeching metal, and more. So smoothly integrated are these styles that the designation of "metal" becomes hardly satisfying, or at least Agalloch hammers the mold to suit themselves. Their "metal" -- a term presumably assigned because of some harsh vocals and double-bass drumming -- is soft and haunting and gorgeous. The glassy distortion on the guitars is the dull gleam of sunlight beyond gray clouds rather than machine gun battery. Acoustic guitars dominate, punctuated with layers of electric guitars (rather than simple synth chords). Most importantly, Agalloch here develops seductive atmospheres and achieves them beautifully thanks to a lush but subdued production job. (Production is the only knock that can be sustained by their excellent debut, _Pale Folklore_.) Haughm's voice is one of the eeriest I've ever heard, the vocals split between harrowing rasps and gritty, forlorn whispers. Although his voice was difficult to adjust to (it's very...different), I love it now.

Instrumentation that seemed unchanging and simple proves to be very diverse on repeated listens. It helps to actually look at song credits and see what instruments are involved because they are very subtly integrated: from the symphonic percussion on "...And the Great Cold Death of the Earth" to the bristly mandolin of "A Desolation Song" to the beautiful, understated trombone theme in "The Hawthorne Passage" to the realms of texture within each song. Special note for "A Desolation Song", which uses the accordion (ggyah!) beautifully. Who would have thought...

Concerning that textural element, Agalloch is amazing in the way they weave different threads and progression in passages that are quite minimalist. "The Lodge" is an epochal instrumental that feels like you are rising from a winter forest on Earth to the cosmos. First it is only pastoral acoustic guitar chords shimmering as sparse percussion beats in the distance. Agalloch slowly adds nebulous texture after texture (double bass and electric guitars), which gives the music a nearly tangible rising sensation. Finally an empyrean electric guitar line is the only remaining sound as the other instruments retreat, leaving one with a feeling of transcendence and power. This is just one (short) example of Agalloch's brilliant writing and arrangements.

The "heavy" songs are not really heavy at all: the double-bass drum intro of "I Am the Wooden Doors" is hardly threatening in and of itself and the gorgeous acoustic guitar break in the middle is sublime; "You Were But A Ghost In My Arms" is an epic electric/acoustic flow of longing and melancholy, intense in its own way but hardly heavy a la metal.

Probably the best things I can say about Agalloch are: their music is extremely difficult to describe and it gets _much_ better every time I listen. This music makes me want to curl up by a fire because it is icy and cold, but ultimately beautiful and amazing...

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AGALLOCH - They just keep getting better, February 13, 2006

By 

Sunshine the Werewolf (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mantle (Audio CD)

AGALLOCH - The Mantle
-
If you thought `Pale Folklore' was a journey into the depths of Black-Metal influenced Ambient Prog Music, I can assure you that was only their warm-up hike. The Portland (OR.) based Agalloch return back for another epic journey through the wilderness with their powerful sophomore release `The Mantle'.

This album is a clear progression for the band... they have done away with much of the awkward sounding black-metal parts (though still kept the much of the genres influence) and furthered their focus on the ambience of the music... Tracks like the 14 minute `In the Shadow of our Pale Companion' is song that is rivaled in modern progressive rock only by few bands (such as `Porcupine Tree') This song is absolutely stunning... creative, lush, somber atmospheres. Where as songs like `I Am the Wooden Door' go back to some of their more metal influences starting with a powerful double-bass intro... but still adding some beautiful acoustics mid-way through. There is not one bad track on the album and the disk is probably best listened to from start to finish to best appreciate this aural experience.

Overall, everything is stepped on this release... Better flow, more cohesive writing... Better production and sound... The vocal work has greatly improved. (Like I said above this album sounds less `awkward' during their heavier parts then their previous album.) I mean `Pale Folklore' was fantastic, but `The Mantle', well it is just freaking amazing!!! Near perfection, in fact why are you still reading this? Go buy this CD! If you like atmospheric post-rock like Pelican, Red Sparowes even GYBE, and have any interest in Prog-Metal (Or things of a heavier progressive influence) such as Opeth, or newer Enslaved. You owe it to yourself to check out both there albums.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy one of the finer ambient albums to ever come out of the USA.

Favorite Tracks: In the Shadow of our Pale Companion, Odal, ...And the Great Cold Death of the Earth
-5 Stars.

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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite possibly the album of the year, January 3, 2003

By 

Noyce (Santa Cruz, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mantle (Audio CD)

From the rainy, snowy and almost always overcast state of Oregon, comes a band that grabbed that atmosphere a cold, snow filt north pacific winter and put it into music. This band is Agalloch. Combining traditional folk style guitar playing with they're own interesting style of black metal (with some fairly well done clean vocals for good measure) Agalloch have come up with one of the most briliant albums of the past year. I know what your saying "Isn't that just an American version of Opeth?" and on paper thats all they are. But once you hear the music you realize Agalloch is a creature all of its own.

The songs move along at a rather slow speed (not in pace, but in progression) buliding up to metalic peaks, and then sinking into crisp acoustic valleys. The album is absolutly dripping with the atmsphere of the northwest mountins. The lead singer has a very good black metal voice, it isn't very intence, which allows the music to do the real talking and the vocals to be more of a back drop. Some of his clean vocals are on the weak side, but in some of the songs they are pulled off well. Personaly I feel they should decrese the clean vox, and add more of the haunting whispering that is used on several tracks. The addition of odd instruments such as e-bows, accordians and all sorts of interesting percussion instruments, makes this a very different sounding metal album.

The album starts out with a short acostic instrumental "Celebration for the Death of Man" which feeds in seamlessly into the 14 minute epic "In the Shadow of our Pale Companion". After a slow progression from two acoustic guitars to hard rocking riffs the song floats through metalic and acosutic parts. The song contains some beutiful acostic moments as well as beutiful lyrics about how the real god is mother nature (or at least thats what I get from it) using a great vocabulary and astonishing imagry, the lyrics of this so0ng realy pull you in. Then comes a rather dull instrumental "Odal," which does have some nice piano work near the end. Then comes the heaviest song on the album (which isn't that heavy compared to other metal bands) "I am the Wooden Doors". Containing some killer black metal vocals as well as great riffs this song is definatly a stand out. Then come a beutiful instrumental called "The Lodge". Containing beutiful acoustic guitars layered with spacy elctrics, odd percussion and soud effects of a man walking through a snow covered forest, the song crys with atmosphere. "You Were a Ghost in My Arms" is another (realitivly) heavy song, containg most black meatl vocals. Then theres another long instrumental, which starts out sounding very much like Pink Floyd before changing into a revolutionary rock out. Then comes the highlight of the album, "The Great Cold Death of the Earth". The song contains very good clean vocal parts sandwiching a great black metal part in the middle. There is also an amazing acostic guitar solo which just has to be heard! The final song "Desolation Song" is somer song about alcholism. Its very sad, and contains some angusihing whispering vocals that absolutly rip at your heart. The has beutiful acordian playing and acoustic guitars.

This album is one of, if not the best album of 2002. This winter, when coming up to Oregon on a train to visit my family, I awoke to be surounded by snow covered trees. I put on "The Mantle" and was taken into another world. The music fit the imagry perfictly, it was one of the best musical (non concert) experiences I've ever had. If you ever get the chance, go into the woods and put this CD on.