Agalloch – Ashes Against the Grain – The Golden Nectar of Heidrun – 10/10

When I first decided I was going to review Ashes Against the Grain, I had no intent to give it a 10. The album has some flaws and not all the songs are the most amazing thing in the world. However, I always listen to an album once before and once during writing my review, and when I heard the first minute or so of my pre-writing playthrough I immediately realized there would be no way I could bring myself to give Ashes Against the Grain anything but a 10. Simply put, it is by long and far my favorite album of all time. Nothing can really be compared to this album, and nothing comes close to being so timelessly amazing for me. Not every song is a masterpiece, but the album contains my two favorite songs of all time and at least two others that are so beautiful, emotional, and heartfelt that I cannot even begin to imagine scoring them lower than 100%. I will say now that this album is not perfect, but fuck perfection – this album is all it needs to be.

Admittedly, back in 2006 when I first heard this album, I wasn’t a big fan of it. I was pretty new to Agalloch, but I didn’t like how Ashes Against the Grain had much longer passages and less melancholy air about it. It wasn’t until I read a review of the album where someone cited the immense emotion and anger that radiates in the album’s every moment that i gave the album another chance. And with that thought it mind, I was completely reintroduced to the album and have since heralded it as Agalloch’s magnum opus. Even so, it has always been hard for me to get over certain things about this album. It took considerable amount of time to get used to the massive tempo changes the album over. The first and third major tracks, Limbs and Fire Above, Ice Below have a far more calm and doomy atmosphere than the second and forth tracks, Falling Snow and Not Unlike the Waves; both of which are more energetic songs full of guitar wankery. In addition, and something I still haven’t fully grown comfortable with, there are the three ‘Our Fortress is Burning’ tracks at the end of the album. Parts 1 and 2 are both good songs, but have never gripped me like the other songs on the album.

To get it out of the way now, the only outright failure on Ashes Against the Grain is Our Fortress is Burning Part III… the Grain. I have absolutely no idea what the fuck they were thinking when they stapled this piece of shit onto the end of their disk. I have no doubt that Agalloch knows how to make ambient atmospheric noise. The Mantle especially consisted of many haunting or calming segues of wind blowing and other sounds of nature which were handled very well. The Grain is not a segue, though, but a seven-fucking-minute track of nothing but wind blowing and really horrible synth overlay. Thankfully it’s at the end of the album so you can almost pretend it doesn’t exist at all. Usually, if I’m not paying attention, I’ll find myself three minutes into the song and suddenly wonder ‘what the fuck am I listening to?’ and then of course realize that I forgot to stop the CD.

That track now officially severed from my opinion of the album, I now wish to proceed with the other issue – the remaining Our Fortress is Burning tracks. I’ve always really wanted to like these songs, especially because so many fans consider Our Fortress is Burning II… Bloodbirds to be the highlight of the album. However, somehow I’ve never managed to fully grasp these two songs. Our Fortress part one suffers from being simply the least emotional piece on the album. It is a five-minute instrumental that is by all means very good and very Agalloch but is surrounded on all sides my massively emotional heart-resounding beauties and just feels a little out of place. Had this song perhaps been shorter, or if there were more such interludes on the album, it might fare better, but instead it just comes across as a nuisance. This is especially true when Bloodbirds comes into the equation. Recently I listened to Bloodbirds for the first time without listening to Fortress part one before it and it was much better than I had ever thought. The problem is that Bloodbirds begins with three minutes of instrumental and coming right out of part one, it is hard to separate the tracks in my mind and it becomes one long, boring instrumental before the highly emotional climax of Bloodbirds. Had Bloodbirds been a stand-alone song, it might have fared better with me all of this time, but instead it is marred by the track before it.

Now, all the problems out of the way, lets get into what really matters – the songs that were so good that even with those major problems mentioned above I still had to give this album no less than 100%.

First of all, Limbs. Limbs is an incredibly angry song, and listening to it is akin to watching the world end. The song opens with a striking, super loud drone-esque squeal from the guitar that suddenly becomes a full song with a burst. The immediate impression given by the first minute or so of this song’s full beginning is ‘post-metal’. If you’ve ever listened to bands like Mogwai or Isis, this part would be familiar as one of the more highly emotional and fulfilling parts of post-rock music. This climaxes and calms into a dark, mystic acoustic riff that has now fully set the tone for the album as a whole – post-metal meats neo-folk meets doom with a whole fuckton of emotion. All of these styles smash together as the song splits open into a heavy, dark, and soul-crushing verse that one can only imagine as the screams of an angry oak cursing the world as it burns and dies. The pessimistic lyrics and all-encompassing melodies fill the listener with indescribable rage and sorrow. One feels as if they have, in fact, become that burning tree and they, themselves, bear witness to the great cold death of the earth. This feeling is created through each of the instruments complimenting each other in ways I’ve never heard music collide before. If one listens to only the drums, they can hear how every single pound of foot and drumstick was placed exactly where it would be complimentary to the guitars. Both guitars wrap around each other and the bass is their shell – it is almost hard to imagine that the music was not created by one living instrument entitled ‘Agalloch.’

Next, Falling Snow is probably the most complete and well-composed Agalloch song ever. The entire song puts the listener directly into the frozen wilderness and keeps them there. The aforementioned instrumentality is absolutely fucking infallible. I can safely say I’ve never heard anything like it. Words truly do not do the experience that is this song justice – I can only tell you to go listen to it yourself. Better yet, the live performances recorded and available on the internet are the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard. Even more is done to perfect the melding of instrument with lots of impeccable drum improvisation that will leave fans familiar with the song breathless. If it weren’t for the fact that another song on this album had already taken the position, Falling Snow would be my uncontested favorite song ever.

Next comes the album’s longest and quietest but probably most emotional song, Fire Above, Ice Below. It begins very somber and melancholy, but more intensive and dark than the melancholy songs from The Mantle. The continuously marching drums behind the cold and sad guitars feel like a dead soul that still continues to walk and fight his own death in spite of the futility of such. As the previous Agalloch albums had a feeling of resignation in the face of demise, this song instead rises and keeps combating it’s destiny to the bitter end. The songs grows in intensity and emotion with some of the most brilliant and memorable riffs ever created. A friend of mine who is a fellow Agalloch fan once described one of these riffs as giving him the most powerful feeling that he’s ever had from music, and I can certainly recognize such a stance. A voice cries once that ‘there has never been a silence like this before’ and later that ‘there will never be an ode like this again’, and truly I must believe that there will never be another album that matches up to Ashes Against the Grain. This song is the sort of iconic masterpiece that one could spend their lifetime hoping to do justice in paying tribute to. I myself have drawn and painted several pictures inspired by this song to try and capture that emotion.

And then, finally, we have my personal number one favorite song of all time: Not Unlike the Waves. This song has everything I could ever want out of a song in it’s nine-minute run, and thus it shall be hard to replace as my favorite. The song has fun, light parts, heavy, emotional parts, folk melodies, post-rock instrumentals, beautifully sung versus, angrily screamed choruses – it has everything. And what’s more, it all fits together brilliantly to create a sort of journey. The opening segment of stomping bass and throbbing, head-banger guitar to the quiet but energetic acoustics, it all resonates of something that transcends mere music. Every bit of Not Unlike the Waves is unforgettable and incredible. I like this song as much as I like my favorite movie or book – it is one of those things that resonates so deeply within me that it is not just ‘a song’ but a part of my life. After the skillful and memorable electric and acoustic guitar solos, when the song climaxes into a double-bass propelled and utterly intense finish, a harsh voice cries “Heidrun bleeds the golden nectar, fall and rise the sun and the moon! The midnight wolves who watch over the dawn! SOLSTAFIR!!!” and it is the greatest moment to me in the history of music. I can recall no shortages of times that I have listened to this song in different situations and that alone made them memorable moments in my life.

Ashes Against the Grain is an experience truly like no other. Rather than let it’s flaws bring down it’s score, I’d rather say that without those flaws I’d have been forced to score the album a 11 because it is that much better than any other album ever created.

Originally posted on http://www.metal-archives.com/