The merging of atmosphere in Metal can be traced as far back as the mid-80's, when Celtic Frost opened doors to new musical dimensions with albums like Into The Pandemonium, surrounding their constructions with a dark, mystical atmosphere that often times gave an eerie, cryptic feeling to the listener. In the early 90's, bands such as My Dying Bride, The Gathering, Katatonia and especially Tiamat seemed to put a considerable amount of emphasis on the atmospheric nature of their sound. Tiamat's Clouds and Wildhoney albums being landmarks in this aspect and generally hailed as groundbreaking albums that completely shattered the wall between atmosphere and Metal, incorporating Gothic and psychedelic influences into their songs that became as important to their sound as the Metal foundation it was built upon.

Over the course of time, many bands have delved into the Atmospheric Metal waters with few coming across as convincing as the early masters, while others have taken this genre to new levels and, in some cases, upstaging their mentors. A band that falls into the latter category is Oregon's Agalloch, who's debut for The End records, Pale Folklore, is quite honestly the most impressive Atmospheric Metal album I've heard since the aforementioned Tiamat classic, Wildhoney. Now, it must be said that Agalloch sound nothing like Tiamat whatsoever, drawing inspiration from bands such as Katatonia and In The Woods..., as well as a healthy amount of influence from the gothic/darkwave scene. The essence of their sound is cold, sorrowful and dark, and the music provides an absolutely perfect soundtrack to the Winter/Autumn seasons, not to mention the snow covered trees and landscapes that decorate the beautiful packaging. And it is those images that instantly enter into the mind once the disc begins with the three part epic, "She Painted Fire Across The Skyline", which opens with a cold, winter wind blowing in the distance as a truly mournful guitar harmony sets the stage for the duration of this piece, each part of this epic taking on a life of its own, yet returning to the theme of the intro at the end. The vocals of John Haughm are predominately performed in a slight, Black Metal rasp, which possesses a more whispered character and is the only aspect of Agalloch's sound that could be linked to this genre. In other places, he uses a clean singing approach which offsets the harsher vocals effectively, sometimes accompanied by a female vocalist. "The Misshapen Steed" is an ambient instrumental so painful in its melancholy that it's almost too much to take..."As Embers Dress The Sky" and "Dead Winter Days" are carried by mournful melodies decorated by acoustic passages , while album closer "The Melancholy Spirit" is drenched in, as the title suggests, melancholy, using an acoustic foundation to express a lonely, cold and desperate emotion.

That Agalloch hail from the U.S. is a bit of a surprise when listening to this album, and with that I whole heatedly believe that this is the best band to emerge from this country in this genre. This music sounds as though it would have come from Finland, as it has way more in common with that region's bands. Pale Folklore is an album that can provide quite a companion during long, cold winter nights...Yet I have found the atmosphere of this album to be greatly enhanced while listening to it during the grey skied evenings of the cold season, staring out the window watching the leafless trees in their desolate beauty sway with the chill breeze that whistles through the air...There is much to offer on Pale Folklore in terms of emotion, musicianship and of course, atmosphere that anyone whose musical tastes lean towards this genre simply must own this album.

This review is credited to:
palewake