THE MANTLE

What Agalloch produced here is a very enjoyable piece of music that black metal fans, progressive metal fans, post metal fans, doom metal fans, folk metal fans, and maybe even Gothic metal fans can easily enjoy. As a fan of all the above, this album was very enjoyable for me to listen to. If you are expecting this to be regular old black metal, then you are making a mistake. The band is definitely rooted in black metal, but they add so much more to it that it kind of creates its own style of doomy, folk black metal. The vocal technique uses clean singing and black metal vocals. There are also a lot of black metal riffs. The mood of the album in my opinion is pretty dark as common with black metal and doom metal, and the music sort of reminds me of a very rainy or snowy day. Also employed are the acoustic guitar and keyboard. Chances are, if you like doom metal, Gothic metal, post metal, black metal, or progressive metal, you will enjoy this album. I am going to give this album a five star rating, as the album is just a great work of music, and it is a very enjoyable album.