AGALLOCH · Marrow of the Spirit (Remix & Remaster) | SMOKE 2LP

Double 180g smoke vinyl (clear with black), triple gatefold sleeve with silver and interior print, LP-sized booklet, padded black inner sleeves, includes album download on designed signature download card. Limited to 900 copies.

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

Some records you don't just hear — you enter them. "Marrow of the Spirit" has always been one of those, and this 2026 remix and remaster finally lets Agalloch's most restless hour breathe the way it was always meant to. Back in 2010 the band deliberately turned their backs on the polished, song-driven clarity of "Ashes Against the Grain". Clean became dirty, digital amp simulations were swapped for vintage tube gear, and tight structures unravelled into vast, cinematic landscapes. The goal was audacious and simple at once: to imagine what a black metal record cut in 1970 might have sounded like. Steven Wray Lobdell tracked it with the instincts of an old-school experimental session, letting performances stay loose, physical and gloriously alive.

The trouble was the mix. Agalloch wanted warmth, depth and analog character, yet crucial details got buried and whole layers of the arrangements drifted out of reach — mastering could only recover so much, and the band never felt the finished record matched the vision in their heads. Enter Markus Stock, whose productions had long been the reference point for exactly this kind of depth and cohesion. Mixed at Klangschmiede Studio E and newly mastered by Gus Elg, this edition pulls the original intent back into the foreground, with Stock chasing emotional impact and the way the instruments melt into one enveloping soundscape. Nothing was rewritten, nothing erased — buried performances simply rise again, and the album's rawness and esoteric identity stay fully intact. From the quiet cello that opens "They Escaped the Weight of Darkness" into the most ferocious blast beats the band ever committed to tape, this is the same untamed monolith, now revealed in renewed depth and force.

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

Other Versions

2CD ARTBOOK · 33,99 € CLEAR RED 2LP · 41,99 € SEA BLUE SMOKE 2LP · 41,99 €

Track listing

LP 1:
A1. They Escaped the Weight of Darkness
A2. Into the Painted Grey
B3. The Watcher's Monolith

LP 2:
C4. Black Lake Niðstång
D5. Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires
D6. To Drown

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