THE MANTLE

Agalloch have managed to masterfully combine the power of darker and heavier rock with elements of folk, creating the ideal space to develop a dense, powerful and heartbreaking doom sound, but at the same time clean and nostalgic, in long developments where the intensity doesn´t decay. The Mantle, 4 years after his excellent debut with Pale Folklore, is the confirmation of a unique proposal, where the desolate and depressing winter landscapes contain the strength and drama of the best of the genre, incorporating all the sound distortion with the brilliance of Acoustic guitars that provide an ideal counterbalance to a gloomy atmosphere, the powerful riffs of electric guitars and the guttural voice of John Haughm.

They didn´t need songs with profuse lyrics to make their message clear, in fact A Celebration For The Death Of Man, Odal, The Lodge and The Hawthorne Passage are instrumental. The latter contains in its last minute a small conversation in Spanish regarding the taste for burials, but it is practically instrumental.

Although all the work maintains a similar level, I can highlight as outstanding the eternal In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion of more than 14 minutes, Odal, with its deep melancholy, the powerful You Were But A Ghost In My Arms, the instrumental The Hawthorne Passage and ... And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth, in my opinion the best song on the album, where the band achieves an unbeatable fusion of folk, doom and death metal.

Excellent material and one of the best from the Experimental / Post Metal sub-genre