Metal Reviews

Been listening to Ashes Against the Grain recently and just wanted to say it's a great album. I'm starting to lose interest in most metal but this is just a solid album. Falling Snow is amazing especially when those clean vocals kick in.

And just a few weeks ago you were making "fuck yeah metal rules" posts.

yeah because I was stuck in a mental institution for 45 days over summer listening to no music at all other than the radio stations that came in occasionally on these headphones we could use. So when I got out metal was fresh again for me.

And to be honest my loss of interest in metal is more of a conscious choice because I just don't like how it makes me feel anymore, too much negative energy. Tired of the sound, and it conflicts with my religious beliefs now.

What's your point anyways? People's tastes can't change?

That's a lot of information in one post.

+1

that was like his life story summed up in 1 summer

metal is too negative LOL

Agalloch is amazing, by the way. They're probably one of my favorite bands. I've played the hell out of both Pale Folklore and Ashes Against the Grain. I've listened to The Mantle, certainly, but not as much as the other two full-lengths. I'm not too familiar with the music off of their EPs, though. I would love to see them live, but they seem to only play in Oregon and in Europe, bypassing most all of US completely. Which is a bummer, because I live there. Any word on a fourth album? I know they were selling a CD comp of their EPs in an attempt to raise money for it, but I haven't heard anything in a while.

I've heard a few moments here and there, but by and large the song lengths are too pretentious. I'll check them out though and brave the tedium..

Never got the hype around this band, really.
Listen to the new Immolation.

Agalloch didn't impress me much. They were just so so.

Pale Folklore has tremendous atmosphere, as does the majority of The Mantle. I thought Ashes Against the Grain was just so-so, however. To summarize, a disturbing tendency to get worse with each full-length, and to take too long between full-lengths, and release a bunch of irrelevant eps. However, tracks like 'She Painted Fire Across the Skyline', 'The Melancholy Spirit', 'I am the Wooden Doors', 'And the Great Cold Death of the Earth', and 'Falling Snow' make them very listenable.

Agalloch is so-so and Metal is too negative. Yep that pretty much sums up why I forget all about this place for months at a time.

I don't understand what you mean ^^?

he doesn't agree with metal being too negative and doesn't agree with agalloch being so-so, so sometimes he completely forgets about the forums because our opinions differ from his.

Like early Woods of Ypres, this band would've been much more enjoyable without the whiny boysband-timbre vocals.

Yeah, I agree that the vocals could certainly be improved, but that doesn't detract too much from my overall enjoyment of the band, though I could see how it would.

I think the vocals are perfect for the band. It gives them this special sound. I admit to only owning Ashes against the grain so my knowledge of Agalloch is a bit limited but they seem to be quite a special band. It's not often that a metal band strikes me as being a bit different since I've been a fan of the genre so long, but Agalloch seems to be differentatied enough to truly raise my interest.

Spinning for the Mantle for the first time in years (I thought I lost the album), this really takes me back to my college days. Eternal Idol has a point, so many of us (myself included) have forgotten what it means to enjoy metal, and instead just critique it.

So what if the vocals aren't perfect? This is brilliant, brilliant music which sounds just as fresh now as the day The End Records put '...And the Great Cold Death of the Earth' on their website. The lyrics are excellent, the folk instrumentation is thoughtful, and their knack for slowly building an excellent melody is unmatched.