Life Is A Clay Urn: Review of Agalloch’s “The Mantle”

Post-rock is everything that rock isn’t. Sure, you have the guitars, the drums, and the occasional vocals in the mix, but instead of the vocalist screaming like a banshee, the guitarists dishing out orgasmic leads while doing the power slide, and the skinsman hitting the kit like a drunk madman, post-rock musicians do none of the above. They channel their creative juices in simply crafting and articulating their ideas into sparse instrumentations, uplifting melodies, and epic compositions.

Having gotten used to the rock template, indulging myself into the furrows of rock, whether mainsteam or underground, has given me a sense of delight in the urgency of its performance. Good rock music has every note alive with passion and sensibilities of life, one that is exhilirating in its mystery shrouded by a thick, fuck-you smoke.

However, I cannot explain how something so morose and dead, such as Agalloch’s The Mantle, exude the lifeforce of beauty in such a way that everything its revealed to the listeners in rich grey tones of melancholy and utter sadness.

The album is the gateway of metalheads, and to anybody for that matter, to post-rock music. The Mantle shares the sentiments that post-rock has expressed throughout the years, and that is the minimalist approach to composition — stripping rock music off its luster and facade to disclose the essentials of classic and unforgettable songwriting. Still, the tracks aren’t merely songs, but rather, experiences that one must partake in order to understand the encompassing nature that post-rock tries to divulge, but only a few has seen.

However, what separates The Mantle from its seeming post-rock nature is its irony. As mentioned, no album has ever felt more alive and tangent by actually expressing itself through remote emotions marooned from life itself. In other words, these songs (or movements, in this case) explicate sadness and death as an enlightening motif and theme to illustrate their sound.

From the soundscapes of “Odal,” the harrowing passages of “…And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth,” the sublime climax of “A Desolation Song,” and perhaps the most emotive and deadliest black metal music ever crafted not written by Ulver in “You Were But A Ghost In My Arms,” Agalloch have employed different techniques to achieve their monolithic and unique sound. Their impeccable interplay between acoustic passages and distorted frenzy underneath a spacious and lush production gives breadth to the bleak atmosphere and harsh theatrics. If there’s an image that perfectly describes The Mantle, it would be a cold mountain covered in snow and filled with leafless trees.

Agalloch relishes in the state of purgatory, a stark contrast to everything that music would normally try to achieve. However, unlike most of its feeble counterparts, Agalloch manages a discomforting stance to life in The Mantle that happens to be livelier than anybody could ever create. Desolation has never been so romantic.

“You Were But a Ghost In My Arms”