Review Summary: Scintillating with awe, The Mantle is a testament of iron
To most metal aficionados, Agalloch is a band which begs no introduction; often classified or pigeonholed as
Dark metal (a fusion of gothic, black and folk), there’s nothing inherently dark about their sound: in fact, one could go a step further and argue they are a band of light. The Mantle, released inᴬᵘᵍᵘˢᵗ² 2002 is a bonafide rollercoaster, it’s not Meshuggah (it doesn’t “pull strings at random” yet, inherently, it has a charm of its own.
The Mantle opens up with "A Celebration for the Death of Man..." a short guitar strum which prepares us for the heartless rampage that is to come. With their nihilistic pantheism epistemology, Agalloch offer a very interesting outlook on human life, the number is replete with allusions to might, divinity, the coldness of winter - but most vehemently, the frailty of humanity’s spirituality. If you consider yourself an atheist, a heathen or a pagan, either way this album delivers, it has a rich artistic vision.
Following
Celebration, ballad/bm rag “In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion” comes along, a heart-wrenching study in bleakness, Vaughm utters:
”Here is the landscape
Here is the sun
Here in the balance of the earth
Where is the god?
Has he fallen and abandoned us?”
Echoing Nietzsche, is a déité removed from us due to its inherent omniscience?? Epicurus though the opposite, omniscience killed the very idea of god, if a god really existed it was a selfish god. Agalloch has a more pagan approach, yet their ruminations are equally assertive. Has god abandoned man?
The remainder of the album is interspersed with similar ruminations, album highlight “you were but a ghost in my arms” especially harrows, as do the (spanish?) samples in the hawthorne passage. “And the great cold death of the earth”, album closer, is poignant and bleak, with a similar subject matter as
Shadow and soothing singing. The album ends in a languid note with a track which recalls Sol Invictus or C93, formative influences for Agalloch.
The Mantle is a stone-cold classic, while its shortcomings are minor, it is cemented as a level-headed classic in folk metal circles. It may not be the trvest album of all time, but it definitely delivers a punch, from a band which time after time proved they were masters of their own craft, now *sips whiskey* lets celebrate the death of man.
