FAUSTIAN ECHOES

The best EP by Agalloch by far. It is actually one long song filled with drama, epic proportions and deep darkness. Narration is used sparsely and does not distract from the music. Furious tempo starts right after the first narration and then the main chords are played repetitively, also the black metal growls step in. Time for post rock to step in at around 3:50, at first having heavy riffs replaced later by clean guitar. Approximately in the half of the song, a kind of outro is played to relax. However, soon the second main motive that is distinctively a raw black metal passage that is still played with different accompanying varation. Nice progressive drum patterns appear at around 13:00. The rest of the long track is still full of changes but not as remarkable as the first half of this epic track. The outro belongs to the narrative, not a surprise at all.

Kudos to Agalloch for taking on a challenging job and conjuring a dark medieval image of Faust. A highly recommended EP!