A new Agalloch album is rarer than a presidential election and much more exciting and important, so when Agalloch announced they have completed recording their fourth full-length, Marrow of the Spirit, last week, I was among the diehard Agalloch fans that check their MySpace religiously in hopes of any inkling of a new release to have their Tuesday turn into the best day of the year–that is, until Marrow is released.
If you are not familiar, Agalloch is a dark metal band from Portland, Oregon that has continually awed the metal world with their beautiful ambient folk metal over the course of their fifteen-year career. They have also selfishly kept their fans hungry for new material and live performances. The band periodically releases limited-run EPs that are notoriously difficult to find (If anyone has a copy of The Grey, I will do terrible, terrible things for it) and plays about two shows a year, most of which seem to be in Romania or some similarly hard-to-reach destination. A full-length, then, and a four date west coast tour is about as big as it gets for an Agalloch fan. Think Christmas, birthday, Hanukkah, and a pay raise rolled into one and then doubled.
While the band embraced a more traditional black/folk metal sound on their earlier EPs, they have since developed a more melodic and atmospheric sound on their recent offerings, blending acoustic melodies and traditional black metal guitars seamlessly and occasionally spicing things up with unique only-Agalloch-could-think-of-this additions, such as the percussion performed with deer antlers on The Mantle. Singer John Haughm alternates between a perfect black metal raspy screech and ominous clear vocals. Agalloch is, essentially, the perfect ambient dark metal band.
Most Agalloch songs are in the seven to eight minute range and Marrow of the Spirit looks to lengthen the average length even further, with five of the six songs on the CD around ten minutes or longer. I’ll have my review for Marrow of the Spirit up around November 23rd, when Agalloch releases this bad boy. Only two more months…