Even though I love black metal and it's offshoots it's rare that I ever catch the bands live. To be fair most of the stuff I really like is the work of reclusive weirdos doing one-man-band things. Or else they are European with violent histories and the likelihood of an American work visa makes their tours highly unlikely. There are some great American black metal bands that do tour a bit (catch Krallice if you can and for the love of unholy trees I wish Wolves In The Throne Room would play outside of the Pacific northwest!) #agalloch are, or rather WERE one of those quality domestic acts. I caught them years ago in Cleveland. They aren't one of the corpse paint and blood acts, actually they looked refreshingly "normal" which I liked a whole lot. They sounded huge and epic live and in that setting the songs took on a sort of post-hardcore indie vibe. I kept thinking they were a darker, more sinister Sunny Day Real Estate. The experience has colored their CDs for me and they have whole new layers in the context of hearing them live. While I was in Cleveland I made a stop at the rock and roll hall of fame. It was a little weird seeing such a fringe band and then looking at these carnivalesque displays of sequenced jump suits and vintage posters treated like religious texts. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, it was a bunch of my music collection made tangible, I just felt a little alien after seeing a band like this the night before.
The band veers towards goth-folk during alot of these songs and it's a great dichotomy to the metallic guitar parts. The band broke up this past year and while I've read the two remaining camps from the dissolution are planning on making more music I fear that this will only make me miss this band even more. It's rare that when a band, which is the mystical alchemy of it's members, dissolves that the remaining factions retain any of the chemistry that made the music special to begin with.
This disc does sound really good to me on this cold, grey December morning.
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