AGALLOCH · Marrow of the Spirit (Remix & Remaster) | 2CD ARTBOOK

Deluxe double CD hardcover book edition, silver hot foil finish, 72 pages with artwork, lyrics and information, printed with silver highlights, includes album download on designed signature download card, curated interview and making-of interviews.

Background information about 'Marrow of the Spirit (Remix & Remaster)'

Some records don't get reissued, they get reopened. When Agalloch first let "Marrow of the Spirit" loose in 2010, it arrived like weather rather than a record: a cello sighing in the dark, then a sudden avalanche of blast beats that felt less like black metal than like black metal played by a band raised on 1970s tube amps and bad weather. Fifteen years on, Agalloch have gone back to Steven Wray Lobdell's original tapes, and instead of buffing the grit away, they've turned the lights up on it. Markus Stock mixed at Klangschmiede Studio E, Gus Elg mastered, and suddenly you can hear the room breathe — the hum of valves, the scrape of strings, the way "Black Lake Niðstång" unfolds like a slow tide swallowing a shoreline.

That's the trick here: this isn't a correction, it's a confession. The original mix always carried a certain fog, and the band never quite shook the feeling that parts of their arrangements had slipped under it. Now the fog lifts just enough to reveal how much was hiding inside. "Into the Painted Grey" hits with a physical weight it never quite had before, "Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires" glows warmer and stranger, and "To Drown" closes the whole thing like a door shutting on a very cold house. And because Agalloch have never been the type to pretend their history didn't happen, the second disc hands you the original mix and master exactly as it was, plus the two bonus tracks from the 2010 tour edition's 7" picture disc — "Nihil Totem" and a reimagining of "The Weight of Darkness."

So you get both truths in one hardbound package: the album as it was, and the album as it was always meant to sound. For anyone who has spent years arguing about which version of this band matters most, here's a release that quietly ends the argument by refusing to pick a side.

For fans of: Ulver, Wolves in the Throne Room, Alcest, Empyrium, Katatonia

Track listing

CD 1:

1. They Escaped the Weight of Darkness
2. Into the Painted Grey
3. The Watcher's Monolith
4. Black Lake Niðstång
5. Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires
6. To Drown

CD 2:

1. They Escaped the Weight of Darkness
2. Into the Painted Grey
3. The Watcher's Monolith
4. Black Lake Niðstång
5. Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires
6. To Drown
7. Nihil Totem (piano composed and performed by Jeffrey Neblock)
8. The Weight of Darkness (reimagined by Chris Greene & John Haughm)

Placer on the market according to GPSR: Four Flames GmbH & Co. KG, In der Garte 38, 49479 Ibbenbueren, Germany, Contact: fourflames.com