Agalloch — “…And the Great Cold Death of the Earth” from The Mantle (2002, The End Records)
When Agalloch’s debut album, Pale Folklore, was released in 1999, I was twenty-one and my understanding black metal was more of a curiosity or a spectacle than a genre that I had spent any time with. I had heard some songs from an acquaintance here and there, keyboard heavy metal opuses that stretched and meandered further than I suppose I was willing to at that time. A few years prior, singing in a metallic hardcore band, I would occasionally try to force my scream into a higher register, which I, in my ignorance, called “the black metal part.”
The cover of Pale Folklore looks a bit like it was created by a team of designers who hit the design studio fresh from the Milwaukee Metal Fest by way of the Rainbow Gathering, and the music doesn’t sound so different from what was being played for me in those days — lots of atmospheric wind sounds, elven keyboard interludes, and overdriven blast beat fury. I supposed it’s what one might expect from a black metal album called Pale Folklore. If I’m honest, what I find most interesting about their debut are the Constellation Records-esque song titles, especially “She Painted Fire Across the Skyline” parts one through three, which kick off the record. From what I’m able to gather from the lyrics, this is more of a folk metal fantasy than the sort of pro-arson content one might expect from black metal bands of this era.
By the time The Mantle was released in 2002, the Portland, Oregon outfit had been raging full on for seven years, and to my mind this sophomore album is more successful at creating a believable atmosphere that is more cinematic in its approach. Of course in making such a claim I had a moment of pause wherein I realized maybe I’m not the expert I’m trying to pass myself off to be. I wondered if maybe it was just a matter of production choices. And so, being a layperson with no concern about my journalistic mettle being called into question, I hit up Wikipedia: “Cinema ‘really emerged as a reference point for how we arranged our music [on The Mantle],” said guitarist Don Anderson. He suggested that the band was “thinking in images and how sound might express those images.’”
Boom. Vindicated.
And at their core Agalloch are still a black metal band, as evidenced by the hissing screams that color the background of the folk metal/neoclassical soundscapes the band creates. At times there are clean vocals, as well, and the interplay between the two is striking (I’m thinking specifically of another song with a Godspeed You! Black Emperor-inspired title, “In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion,” the second track on the record, a sprawling seventeen-minute animal).
Our track today, “…And the Great Cold Death of the Earth,” appears in the number eight spot on the tracklist (in baseball that would likely make it a utility infielder, but that’s probably a metaphor best left unexplored). By the time we get there we’ve heard crescendos that contain something of an almost military feel, slow acoustic interludes with chiming percussion, space rock guitar effects, lots of acoustic strumming, and lines like “you are the lugubrious spirit / etched in the oak of wonder. Ultimately I think Agalloch is less a band for those who are drawn to black metal for its relentless velocity and extreme aggression, and more for those who have painted miniature figurines before and/or have a passing familiarity with invented languages. This is for the true heads, the dorks.
I say that with some derision, sure — I’ve never painted a miniature figurine, never been on a campaign, and, beyond English, possess what could only generously be called a passable fluency in Spanish. Even so, I respect this world, and I’m not mad at what Agalloch accomplished here. In fact, it’s done quite well. Sure, maybe I’m more likely to reach for Wiegedood or early Ulver or even Liturgy to scratch my black metal itch, but then again those bands aren’t necessarily after the same thing as Agalloch anyway. And if those dorks got their hands on Wooden Box, released in 2010 by Germany’s Viva Hate Records and containing the Pale Folklore LP, the Of Stone, Wind, and Pillor EP (extended with live tracks), the The Mantle LP (painted myself into a ‘double the’ right there, oh well), and the Ashes Against the Grain LP, then they’re sitting on hundreds of dollars that I’m not. So take that, me.
“…And the Great Cold Death of the Earth” is composed of more acoustic strumming and clean vocals, very much continuing motifs established earlier in the record. It’s for that reason, I suppose, that I wanted to spend so much time establishing the background, both of Agalloch but of this song as positioned on the record. This is certainly more of a folk metal track than a black metal one, and honestly I refer to Agalloch as black metal more as a matter of convenience than anything; most genre descriptors for the band that I was able to find online were far more hybridized than that.
As for the lyrical content, it’s pretty bleak, but then what did you expect, given the title? When Jon Haughm finishes the track with “Darkness and silence, the light shall flicker out…,” it seems unlikely that his intention is to uplift, but rather to document. Now, it’s more likely that Off Minor was correct when they forecasted The Heat Death of the Universe in 2003, but then, black metal bands have always preferred all things wintry.
The Shuffler 