Agalloch - The Mantle

Agalloch doesn’t fit. Not into genres. Not into playlists. Not into moods that begin or end cleanly. Their music has been labelled all kinds of things—atmospheric folk/doom/black metal, post-rock, post-metal—and none of it really matters.

Because The Mantle doesn’t want to be defined. It wants to be felt.

The Mantle, Agalloch's second studio record, released in 2002, was the first one I picked. For me, it sits comfortably next to Alcest and Sólstafir in the post-metal realm—dense, moody, slow-burning albums for people who would rather sit in silence than make small talk.

Formed in 1995 by John Haughm, Agalloch ran with a relatively stable lineup from then until their split in 2016. Haughm provided vocals, guitars, and drums early on. Don Anderson (guitar, keys) joined in 1996, Jason Walton (bass) in 1997. In 2023, they reunited for a few select shows—Haughm, Anderson, and Walton still in place, with Hunter Ginn on drums.

They’ve gathered a sort of cult status. Some say they’re pioneers. Others say they never invented anything. The internet is full of people arguing about whether The Mantle is genius or just pretentious snowfall with a guitar track.

I don’t care.

All I know is that The Mantle got to me.

With 68 minutes and nine songs, The Mantle is not casual listening. It asks something of you. It demands attention—and stillness. Four of the nine tracks are instrumentals. In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion alone clocks in at 14:45, framed on both sides by wordless passages. It’s essentially a 25-minute meditation on melancholy.

But if you let it take hold?

It’s beautiful. And strange. And slow.

It sounds like snow falling on dry leaves.

Like looking out a window and forgetting what you meant to do.

There are no standout riffs. No clean hooks. Just layers.

Acoustic melodies, ambient textures, and guitar lines that feel less like they’re being played and more like they’re being unearthed.

Haughm’s clean vocals are—nasal. Not my favourite. But they’re not the centre of the sound. They hover. They haunt.

His rasped vocals, when they appear, are sharp and cold—something to flinch into.

The drumming is simple. Often distant. But that’s the point. This isn’t an album you march to. It’s one you sink into.

I Am the Wooden Doors is the heaviest moment on the album—raw black metal energy, with double kicks, distortion, and rasped vocals finally breaking through the fog.

But even here, there’s a folky interlude—a slowing, a clearing—and then the storm returns.

You Were But A Ghost In My Arms doesn’t quite land for me. The clean vocal tone pulls me out of it. But the harsh sections and the drumming still carry weight.

And the Great Cold Death of the Earth mirrors the album’s opening melody—tying it together in a near-perfect close. It’s full of aching, folk-infused textures, dramatic percussion, strings, even contrabass.

If they’d ended here, it would have been enough.

But they didn’t.

They ended with A Desolation Song.

And I’m so glad.

It’s entirely acoustic. Open, strained, whispered. A mandolin. An accordion. A sense of something collapsing slowly, on purpose.

With The Mantle, I found something I didn’t know I needed.

When I play this—It settles into my chest like snow. Quiet. Heavy. And comforting in its coldness.

This is music for when the heart grows tired and the world is too loud.

Instead of walking into the woods or screaming into rivers,

I put this on.

And for an hour—I disappear.