AGALLOCH: THE SERPENT & THE SPHERE (2014)
1) Birth And Death Of The
Pillars Of Creation; 2) (Serpens Caput); 3) The Astral Dialogue; 4) Dark Matter
Gods; 5) Celestial Effigy; 6) Cor Serpentis; 7) Vales Beyond Dimension; 8)
Plateau Of The Ages; 9) (Serpens Cauda).
After a four-year pause, briefly interrupted
only once with the one-track EP Faustian
Echoes (on which they tried combining music with an actual Goethe recital
and film soundtrack samples, to no major success), Agalloch are finally back to
deliver, as you might have guessed, another very much Agalloch album. This time
the vague concept behind the songs is even grander than before, switching from
issues of decay and extinction of the human race to the birth and death of the
Universe itself, apparently imagined in the shape of the Great World Serpent,
so if regular cosmology is too boring or difficult for you, feel free to take a
sixty-minute crash course on the basic model of the universe from these guys.
The problem is, if you raise the conceptual stakes
so high, you should probably be prepared to extract the adequate high cards
from your sleeve — and yet, so it seems, this band is still not willing to go
far beyond the deuce, if you know what I mean. Four massive LPs into their
career, we are now perfectly aware of all the regular trademarks of Agalloch,
and The Serpent & The Sphere
adds nothing whatsoever to their usual bag of tricks. On the contrary, it
subtracts: for instance, there are no more traces of clean vocals (have they
gotten death threats from serious fans or what?), the instrumentation is very
basic (no strings and very few keyboards), and the song tempos, which used to
range from «very slow» to «mid-tempo», all tend to drift towards «mid-tempo»
now, leaving less room for the subtle, gradual unfurling of the atmospheric canvas.
When you contrast this mysterious
self-limitation with a bombastic song title like ʽBirth And Death Of The
Pillars Of Creationʼ, this sort of blows out a brain circuit. True, Agalloch
never positioned themselves as a major experimental outfit, preferring to test
the possibilities of a set formula rather than blow the formula itself to
smithereens. Even Marrow Of The Spirit,
disappointing as it was in general, had itself a bit of testing (the cello
intro alone was an unusual move by any accounts). But The Serpent & The Sphere, despite its lyrical ambition, after a
few listens remains the first Agalloch album that gives a sharp impression of
«regress» rather than «progress», even according to Agalloch's own limited standard.
The bulk of the album is given over to these burly
mid-tempo romps that we all know very well by now — two or three guitars woven
together in droning / folksy-jangly manners, driven forward by a huge drum
sound and occasionally accompanied by John Haughm's whispered or growled (more
often, whispered and growled) vocals.
Describing them is impossible and useless (they tried doing it over at
Pitchfork and came out with descriptions like «flickering
notes stabbing at distended riffs and pristine tones countering sheets of
distortion», which, if you stare at them long enough, could equally well apply to,
say, the Rolling Stones, for example). All I can ask myself is — does any of
these riffs and tones exceed the average expectations? And the answer is a
strict no all the way.
The longest and
probably «crucial» number on the album, the twelve-minute instrumental ʽPlateau
Of The Agesʼ, only matches its title, I think, if there was nothing much
happening on that particular plateau throughout the ages (which, come to think
of it, might very well be the actual fate of most plateaus). A completely predictable, safely played set of
crescendos, mainly based on a series of ascending trills the likes of which
have been produced a miriad times already — just compare this to something like
ʽIn The Shadow Of Our Pale Companionʼ, with its memorable main theme, a series
of melodic jumps that were impossible to preview, and a certain sense of
exuberance from an ambitious young band that had just picked up the scent of
something not completely, but noticeably different. ʽPlateau Of The Agesʼ — and
everything else on here — is the same band going through the motions, seemingly
bent more on creating a «metaphysical installation» than music that would
continue to be interesting. No steam.
The songs are linked
together with three short instrumentals, whose Latin titles refer to the head,
heart, and tail of the Serpent — three chrono-spatial parts of the Universe? —
but here, too, the curious conceptual idea is realized with three boring
acoustic interludes, consisting of the same types of scales and arpeggios that
Agalloch themselves and everybody else have already explored many times in the
past. Come on now, wouldn't we expect just a little extra thrill from the consecutive appearance of the head,
heart, and tail of the Serpent? How about at least using three different
instruments, or something?
Probably some songs are slightly more creative than
others, but, honestly, I do not have the strength to drag them all under the
analytical microscope. Long-term fans of the band have indeed praised the
album, and, since it swears such stark loyalty to the formula, if you really
love Agalloch for the atmosphere, you will not be disappointed. If you love
Agalloch for the riffs and memorable melodies, you might be a little
disappointed (I didn't manage to memorize anything, but maybe it's just me).
But if you love Agalloch for pushing boundaries of the genre, stay away. The
only thing that will be pushed here is your patience; and mine has been pushed
hard enough to get all pissed off and leave here with a mean thumbs down.
Will be seeing you 'round about three years on, gentlemen, and please don't
forget to bring back the cello at least.
Check "The Serpent & The Sphere" (CD) on Amazon
Check "The Serpent & The Sphere" (MP3) on Amazon
any thoughts on that new autechre release from last year? quite demanding and polarizing. i've got mixed feelings myself
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