Agalloch | ‘Ashes Against The Grain’

The thing about Agalloch is that their shortcomings make them the band they are. Haughm’s voice was never really that strong, and if anything verged on the effeminate, making up in atmosphere what it lacked in oratorical strength. The type of metal they play - ponderous songs, overhung at every turn with reverb and melancholy lines, slightly mawkish – has also found itself out of vogue since the turn of the millennium, and yet to anyone with an ear for the genuine underground, its much of the reason for their appeal.

Despite its quality, repeated listens showed more of ‘The Mantle’s shortcomings than strengths. It was just too much a tentative sum of its influences upon real inspection, and lacked the honest youthful pastoralism of their essential ‘Of Stone…’ EP. It’s true that there are moments of surpassing excellence in it, but the suspicion of a band wishing they didn’t have to play metal any more permeated the whole enterprise.

They’re squaring up to the conundrum with a bit more equanimity this time round, accepting their influences for what they are rather than trying vainly to straightjacket them into the metal format. As such the yearnings toward Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Mogwai and a host of other crescendo obsessed navel gazers are endemic. The attempt to also reference sturdy old neofolk in the form of Blood Axis and Sol Invictus corellates with this gingerly at best. But in accepting that they don’t care for the leather jacket crowd any more, they have gained at least some musical maturity. Not enough however.

Just as with ‘The Mantle’, a slightly hermetic feeling remains. Even though there are four of them, it still all sounds like one man’s gig. Anyone standing back from the band’s music must be forced to realise that they haven’t actually developed in any substantive way; you get the feeling that had they hit the road a bit harder they could have penned more assured, gripping material. ‘Ashes’ is by no means a bad album, but it is the same thing all over again, strong and evocative though that is.

Genuinely impressive moments do pepper this cd though. The mournful lead melody of ‘Falling Snow’ is vintage stuff, while ‘Not Unlike The Waves’ has a jangly guitar tone redolent of the best British 80s goth, as well as providing the album’s most stirringly epic metal moment. So it is worth buying. To a generation of metallers weaned on In The Woods… and their forested ilk, bands like Agalloch remain an increasingly rare commodity now that the years have made such concerns look a bit teenage.

But it would be unfair to let a band as worthy as this pass without stringent appraisal, and in that capacity, this band really have to do something different next time round. It’s good for sure, but cherry picking the best bits of other genres is no substitute for heartfelt musical power. The first is what Agalloch need to drop, while the second is what they have to recapture.

3.3 / 5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 23/08/06