The White EP is the follow up to 2004’s The Grey EP, (which I never heard) and consists of 7 more acoustic, ambient and instrumental tracks from the leading purveyors of ‘grey metal’.
Composed from 2004 to 2007, this limited edition EP is a good place for this batch of material as it’s hardly recognizable as Agalloch due to being hardly any form of metal, but rather the introspective musings and non metal compositions of some truly talented artists wanting another outlet for this form of music.
At 32 minutes, you actually get quite a good bit of new music (as opposed to The Grey’s remixed The Mantle tracks), and all 7 tracks are wonderfully radiant and organic moments of delicate and contemplative instrumental music. From the blissfully relaxing opener “The Isle of Summer” through the more stirring “Birch Black”, austere “Black Hollow”, highlight “Pantheist” with hypnotic chants, more upbeat and spoken word (a poem by A.S.J. Tessimond) filled “White Birch”, EP centerpiece “Siwilo Rune” (at almost 6 minutes) and closer “Summer Isle Reprise”, The White EP is a meditative journey into forests, dreamscapes and the souls of four musicians not content with parlaying their skill into just metal.
Artful, elegant and beautiful, The White EP shows that Agalloch are not content to simply rest on their laurels, but are willing to continue their discography of challenging, perceptive music, regardless of pigeonholing.
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Agalloch us def one of the greatest bands the world has ever gave us
on Apr 3rd, 2008 at 11:41Damn right they are!
on Apr 3rd, 2008 at 19:01this is excellent headphones music. Its nice to see this sort of departure handled so well in EP form so we get a good taste of a more mellow and relaxed diversion of this band’s music but its long enough to provide a satisfying listen without feeling like it ends too abruptly.
on Apr 18th, 2008 at 22:00