Winter's Hush

The calender says December, yet somehow it doesn't feel like it. Perhaps it's the unseasonable warmth, the lack of snow, or something else. Xmas has come and gone. We now dread the week between holidays, cause we don't want to work. We want to play with all our new gadgets, spend money, stimulate and pleasure the economy. In any case Winter tends to depress the hell out of some as it tends to do with me. More so now probably since I've relocated back to the Midwest, I have to deal with the dreaded snow. Perhaps for some it's not bad, but growing up on the West Coast it seems to dampen my mood.

As the year draws to a close most of us tend to look back at the year in review. As always there's a mix of the good and the bad. Society as whole continues to make me wonder where the hell we went wrong at. Music continues to expand and evolve and devolve in some instances. It's been a fickle year for music. Maybe 2012 will change that and we will get a return to the good stuff.

As with the seasons I tend to listen to more melancholy stuff during the winter months. The album I'm posting sort of can fall into that category. Agalloch hails from the Pacific Northwest and is a delightful breath of fresh air. Releasing only a handful of material over the past decade and rarely playing live, the band somehow has made a name for itself in the metal world. First listen to any of the albums or EPs will let you know why. I got into the band shortly after 'The Mantle' came out. There was just something so awe inspiring about that record. It took you on a journey it seemed. While I considered posting that, I'm going with the 2nd EP if you will in a set. The lighter of the two, 'The White EP'. A more subdue acoustic neo folkish metal record. It's really hard to pigeonhole the band into any one genre. In any case this EP is good for a night by the fire with a nice heavy beer and a open mind.

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