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Rating:
Usually, debut albums are the ones that make the most resounding impact, and the Agalloch's "Pale Folklore" (1999) from Portland, Oregon does not break this rule, although it betrays a slight inexperience of the band. With this album, Agalloch manages to blend two overused genres, such as doom and folk, crafting a raw and palpable winter atmosphere as biting as the cold that freezes every single note of their music.
Those unfamiliar with the album who feel apprehensive reading the infamous "doooom" should not expect a super heavy, depressing, and especially slow album (like any good doom album): "Pale Folklore" centers around agile and damn elusive rhythms, as well as foggy and indefinable atmospheres, never veering into frightening infernal antechambers but instead leaving only a trail of autumn languor and melancholy as dense as resin.
The contrast between acoustic/clean and distorted guitar is the first real winning weapon of the album, noticeable right from the magnificent trilogy of "She Painted Fire Across the Skyline: 1/2/3" that majestically opens the album: between imperceptible and never shocking tempo changes, the clean guitar's tears and the dry, thin wall of sound of the distortions alternate and cross like the verses of a bitter poem, feverishly painting the course of the seasons. As if that weren't enough, the contrast between Haughm's icy, hoarse whispers and a singer's lyrical high notes (whose name I don't know) further accentuates, indeed enriches, the faded and watercolor hues from the instruments.
Still following the same formula, Agalloch skillfully navigates and manipulates the mood of each piece, at times playing with a marked epicness, tracing solos and arpeggios in the air that evoke the sublimity of immense landscapes (like the album's jewel "Hallways of Enchanted Ebony"), then moving into territories more suited to true doom (the raw and dry "Dead Winter Days") or venturing into authentic bursts of pure melancholy and dripping ambient (the dreamlike sweetness of the keyboards in "The Misshapen Steed").
"As Embers Dress The Sky" is somewhat the worthy summation of the Agalloch genre, with that central break where a dreamy and disconsolate acoustic guitar blossoms, while "The Melancholy Spirit" drowns in the echoes of its wintry arpeggios, at times distant and arcane, advancing with an almost resigned sadness and tranquility; Haughm whispers bitterly, growling faintly, but never explodes in furious screams, as if slowed and contained by the sweet and clear sadness of a life spent contemplating a natural scene that is now fading slowly and silently.
In this "Pale Folklore," Agalloch has shown, with the voice a poetry that lives in its silent agony, that they still have much to say; in fact, they will do so with the subsequent "The Mantle" and "Ashes Against the Grain," expanding sounds to the limits of post-rock and masterfully refining their more folk component. Although this remarkable debut still sounds a bit rough and "immature", it fully deserves a 4.5 which I gladly round up.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
05 Hallways of Enchanted Ebony (09:59)
Kiss me coldly and drain this life from my lips
Let the cold blood flow on it's own...
Kiss me coldly and fall away from the soul
Long forgotten...
From which of this oak shall I hang myself?
These ebon halls are always dark...
From which frostbitten bough shall I die?
As dark as the winter, as black as her ghastly veil
As cold as her whisper and chilling gown
No corridors of life and beauty
These enchanted halls are stained with the blood of night
Ebon halls gleam as ghosts of a fire dance wickedly across a pantheon of marble
These weary eyes shall open no more, frozen tightly by the cold embrace of death
A charnel house of memories torn and burning melancholy shall embrace me now
Hear this call...
Beyond endless halls and far across the vast forest, just across the iron gates
Whispers...
As dark as the winter, as black as her grim mask of death
As cold as her sorrow, her ivory tears
No corridors of life and beauty
No bloodred sky, no colors left in this world
It was the light's end
[Music by Haughm (12/97 - 2/98)]
06 Dead Winter Days (07:51)
There lies a beauty behind forbidden wooden doors
A beauty so rare and pure it would make human eyes bleed and burn
She killed herself in the fall
I am the unmaker, I bring death to the beautiful dawn
With pillor, cold and a legion of dying angels
I killed myself in the spring
A grim bough had hung me high
I sank the fires of the Sol
Here, nightfall reigns
I oppose the light
I gather the storms with a sword I wield with hate
I shot down the sun with bow and flame
Pillorian for the dead winter
I am the unmaker
The pillorian, the ending
I die...
I damn you the dead winters
07 As Embers Dress the Sky (08:04)
The shallow voice of the wind cries between these ebony wings
The shallow cries of the wind sing a swansong for mankind
Shine on morning skyfire
ablaze this final day
The autumnal end, the dawn of man
The centuries fade below my feet
I soared above them as they worthlessly poured thought from a chalice
As wisdom would flow, twilight would come to pass
Drink, oh hallowed cup of life
Shine on evening skyfire
Paint the sky with the blood of a raven
Bereavement, oh garment of ebony
As embers dress the dusk of man...
[Music by Haughm/Anderson (3/96 - 10/96)]
08 The Melancholy Spirit (12:24)
It was in this haunted place under a moonless cloak of ebony
I was drawn to the glow of a young spiritess weeping in the woods
The blackest ravens and ice-veiled boughs
Have spoken of you, goddess of these bleak woods
I yearn for your embrace, spiritess of the melancholia
Show me, again, your sweet face
Enchant me with your rich, cinder burnt ether
Lure me into your arms and bless unto me eternal death
She had spoken to the dawn
Her words wisped in tongues of the wind
And then silence...
Pale clouds betrothed the dawn
Black rain fell
The birds wore masks
The haunting stain of her woe
Had burned itself into the oak
Night had gone
Bereaved, I was torn for her
One last time I witnessed her beauty in the distance
The arms of the trees tore at her morbid gown swaying in the loathsome winter
breeze
She faded before my eyes
Since that day a thousand veiled birds have taken flight
And the melancholy rain still pours forever on...
(Music by Haughm (4/97 - 3/98)
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By stargazer
Stunning debut album for the extraordinary Agalloch, an American band from Oregon, a land full of forests and ancient redwoods.
A sensational debut, incredibly evocative and full of surreal and dreamy sounds.
