May 042014
“The wait is over. You can now listen to the new Agalloch album “The Serpent & The Sphere in its entirety over at NPR.”
Those are the words that appeared less than an hour ago on Agalloch’s Facebook page. And they are true words — you can indeed listen to the new album (which NPR praises in its review as “another metallic masterpiece from Agalloch”) in its entirety right now.
We just got our promo of the album late last week, about 10 days before its official release on May 13. I was hoping to have a review ready to post tomorrow, and we probably still will review it. But if I were you, I’d listen to it here while you can:
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/04/308273140/first-listen-agalloch-the-serpent-the-sphere
Don’t worry, everyone I know knows that I’m listening to this right now. Fittingly, this comes as San Diego finally escapes the clutches of the Santa Ana winds, and returns to its normal self (seriously, it’s been consistently at about -30% humidity all week. As in we’ve found a way to get less than 0% humidity over here), so it feels like the misty, mountainous forest that Agalloch’s music always conjures in my mind.
Now I really want to get Ira Glass to listen to Goatwhore… not that I’ve ever met the guy.
whoops. commented on wrong thread.
I know this has been commented on at length, but if you’d told me a few years ago that NPR was going to be a go-to place for streaming metal, I would have scoffed. Heartily.
To complete the journey, I need to hear the following: “This is Ira Glass. On this episode of This American Life, I’m listening to Goatwhore.”
Followed by a live on-air f-bombed interview with Sammy Duet.
Now I’m imaging Inquisition in the StoryCorps booth tearfully explaining why they’re not Nazis.
It made me feel sad until I pictured them in full corpse paint. StoryCorpse, amirite?
You’re on fire today. I’m now imagining Dagon running out of patience and sticking a shiv in the interviewer.
Now I really want to get Ira Glass to listen to Goatwhore… not that I’ve ever met the guy.
If you could do that, you would be my hero. Well, you’re already kind of my hero, but you know what I mean. 🙂
I can’t wait to read the review on this when you have a chance to post it. I pre-ordered the album without listening to a single note of it, and have read some unpleasant thoughts on it from around the internet. Those sites are usually the ones to post dissenting opinions regarding great records seemingly because they just fucking feel like it, so I will trust yours more.
Thanks. I think ours may actually be ready for posting later today after all.
Just listened through it this morning (while ignoring a meeting). I like it, but (heretical opinion upcoming), like all Agalloch, I enjoy it while it’s on and then immediately forget about it. I’d be hard pressed to articulate why Agalloch does this to me (or doesn’t, as the case may be), but that’s always been the way for me.
Our review now posted:
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2014/05/05/agalloch-the-serpent-the-sphere/
sounds awesome!