The Mantle

At last, I have gotten around to listening to this black metal classic from 2002. I'm sorry that I didn't review it when it came out, but I was only nine and I'm not sure what music I listened to back then.

I was interested to discover that this album does show its age a little bit. I don't think that I would confuse it for an album that had been released in 2021. Post-rock was in vogue in 2002--remember bands like Explosions in the Sky?--and I will always associate walking, laid-back rock music with that decade. The Mantle, as it turns out, is as much a post-rock album as a black metal album. There are long minutes in which there is no vocalist: just guitars, ambient noises, folk instruments. At one point someone thumps a deer skull. Did I mention that this is folk music as well?

Agalloch is preoccupied with nature. The theme of the album is that mankind is a virus that has infected nature, and the two are at war with each other. (The opening song's title: "A Celebration for the Death of Man.") I find this theme a little tired, though not untrue. Fortunately, the album is abstract enough that it isn't didactic; I never feel like it is trying to teach me a lesson about climate change.

One big point in this album's favor is that it sounds completely like itself. Agalloch has a polished style and sound, and they commit fully to it. I prefer albums that are a bit tighter, with more energy; but if Agalloch had tried to move in that direction, it would have made their music worse. These guys know what they are, and the assurance of their sound is what makes the album a classic that people use as a reference point when talking about black metal.