Agalloch

The Serpent and the Sphere (Profound Lore)

Like a frost giant warming itself by the fire, Portland quartet Agalloch keeps one boot in balmy progressive folk and the other in frigid black metal. The band’s fifth LP pushes extremes further than ever, with some of its prettiest, most haunted acoustic textures and heaviest, raspiest roars. “Plateau of the Ages,” “Vales Beyond Dimension,” and “Dark Matter Gods” wrap sludge-ripping crunch and throat-caressing shimmer together so sensually that pleasure and pain become indistinguishable. Boasting enough insidious imagination to evolve beyond easy metallic labels, Agalloch transports The Serpent and the Sphere into its own phantasmagoric astral plane.

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This article appears in June 27 • 2014.

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Michael Toland started writing about music in 1988 on the Gulf Coast, moved to Austin in early 1991, and has inflicted bylines upon the corporeal and digital pages of Pop Culture Press, The Big Takeover, Blurt, Amplifier, Austin.citysearch, the Austin American Statesman, Goldmine, Sleazegrinder, Rock & Roll Globe, High Bias, FHT Music Notes, and, since 2011, The Austin Chronicle.