| Agalloch ‘Pale Folklore’ The End Records , 1999 Lord Pale : Agalloch is a unique sounding melodic darkmetal band hailing from America. Their main vocal style is a typical blackened rasp, but this can varies to clear, deep, chanting, whispered and even the occasional female vocals throughout the albums course. Musically Agalloch uses a lot of acoustic guitars as either intros, interludes or over-dubs to the normal riffs. The basic guitar work is fairly simplistic rocky riffs whilst the lead guitars overlay them with melodic, sometimes In Flames like, riffs as on ‘As Embers Dress The Sky’. Keyboards are used sparingly in the form of pianos and bells, except on the musical track ‘The Misshapen Steed’ which is an entirely keyboard piece which starts off eerily and builds up to a powerful epic ending with Dimmu Borgir style choir synths. The music is on the slower side of mid tempo, and the songs are usually fairly lengthy lasting around 6-7 minutes each with enough variation to prevent them from running into each other. Occasional samples of wind and dog howls create a natural earthy feel which helps to accentuate the dreary tone of the lyrics. The bass guitar work is also interesting, as it doesn’t always just follow the drums or guitar riffs but sometimes plays its own riff adding a further dimension to the music. The lyrics to Pale Folklore focus on typical darkmetal subject matter such as suicide, longing and loss in a fairly elegant florid script. Overall a good album and a promising debut. Favourite Tracks - Dead Winter Days , She Painted Fire Across The Skyline ( Pt 3 ) , Hallways Of Enchanted Ebony Mark - 8.5/10 SECOND OPINION Gloon : Doomy atmospheric metal with a splash of blackmetal influence. Overall good for its genre but a little to slow and drawn out for myself. Favourite Tracks - Dead Winter Days. Mark - 6.5/10 Agalloch ‘Of Stone, Wind, and Pillor’ The End Records , 2001 Lord Pale : Agalloch’s return heralds a new mini cd which fails to capture the brilliance of their debut album. Containing 5 tracks, one new song, a cover of Sol Invictus, a 'neoclassical piece by Breyer' which sounds reminiscent of Bathory's track 'Hammerheart', and 2 musicals. Quite simply the Sol Invictus cover is rather unimpressive with poor vocals and repetitive lyrics. The only new track which sounds like Agalloch on the album is the title track which could have easily been pulled off of 'Pale Folklore' and has all the melody and acoustic interludes that attracted me to that opus. The musicals present are adequate, but why they chose to put so many on a mini cd, especially considering the 'neoclassical piece' is hardly a song in itself only they can tell us. Overall very disappointing, too much shit and not enough Agalloch to be value for money. Favorite Tracks - Of Stone, Wind, And Pillor Mark - 5/10 |
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