A sense of melancholy pervades throughout the music AGALLOCH plays, much like the steady drizzle of the weather that persists through the Pacific Northwest for much of the year. But just like the region they live in, there is a great deal of beauty to be found within the music that they create. With four years between the release of "The Mantle" and AGALLOCH's third album, "Ashes Against The Grain", a great deal of anticipation has been built. Metal fans from around the globe have been waiting patiently for the next masterpiece from these young, talented artists and it does not disappoint in the slightest.

Let's start out by talking a bit about the new album, "Ashes Against The Grain". Tell us a little bit about the new musical direction, just what is different, what is the same?

"I think what's different, thankfully, is that 'Ashes Against The Grain' I feel is a much more focused album than 'The Mantle'. I think on 'The Mantle' is when we were really taking a lot of risks and trying to sort of play with different genres, you know. We are all very eclectic listeners when it comes to music and so we felt like we wanted to integrate more outer influences, not Metal influences. But now, listening to 'The Mantle' it sounds very convoluted in some way, as much as I still like it, but 'Ashes' sounds like we really have found our sound and are able to combine all those seemingly disparate genres into a more cohesive whole. So for me, it's the most succinct statement we've ever made."

Lyrical direction on this album?

"Lyrically, I know that John is interested in being even more vague, but maybe less wordy - the lyrics are even more economical than they are on 'The Mantle'. Like the vocabulary isn't quite as polysyllabic, you know. John watches a lot of watches a lot of Russian and surreal cinema and I think he was drinking a lot, so he was trying to write a very surreal, almost stream of consciousness, so I think the lyrics are going to be more impenetrable now, as opposed to being very clearly about something. There's definitely a very linear tale, 'cause the album is set up that way, as a linear tale, but in terms of a very clear cut interpretation, I think it's going to be more difficult this time around than previous albums."

Okay, tell us a little bit about the video you recently filmed for "Not Unlike The Waves".

"We got a hold of Nicole Dawn Phillips, who did the video for label mates of ours, CRISIS. We weren't sure at first, because they're kind of a hardcore band and the video she did for them was very sort of hardcore, very anarchistic, very live footage and John and I are both very into films, we really wanted to do something cinematic and she was a big Ingmar Bergen fan and so are we and we're like 'that's perfect!' She was totally into it - she flew in from L.A., having never been to the Pacific Northwest before and she was just astounded by the variety of the environment here, and so we got a lot of awesome shots of the Columbia Gorge, Beacon Rock, the Vista House, Multnomah Falls, so it's very much... I like to think of it as we think of Woody Allen making films about New York, I like to think AGALLOCH, we made a film about Portland, about the Pacific Northwest. So I think it really catches the song and we've only seen a rough cut so far. It has some different elements, but definitely very AGALLOCHian."

What was it like going through the process of shooting your first video for the band?

"It was incredibly awkward because there's always an element of acting because you're not really playing your guitar and so... I've never done that before. I mean, of course I've air guitared as a kid all the time, but that was really strange because I don't know how to act, I felt really awkward, you know. But there's just as many natural images as there are band images and most of it's John anyway, 'cause he's the singer. But it was just really fulfilling to be able to do it because John and I have always fantasized about a video since the beginning 'cause we love cinema."

Okay, tell us a little bit about the different special editions of the album.

"The album's cover that was released isn't exactly the album cover because we have it inside a slipcase. So the slipcase's is done by Tolonen from the band NEST, who we're friends with and have collaborated with in the past. It's a little different than what you've seen, but that's the standard edition, then The End Records is putting out a web-store only release, five-hundred copies of the same edition, but housed inside a wooden box and with some extra photos and some other little surprises, which I think is on sale now, but probably quickly going, so there's the two main editions. There's more than likely be a vinyl release as well - maybe it'll have some bonus tracks for that."

Has the band been bothered by the heavy Internet leakage of the album?

"Not at all. Because on one level, it's the best promotion you could ever have, you know? On the other level, because we were so delayed in the studio with so many computer problems that I was just like 'man, I can't wait 'til this comes out.' It was really rewarding to see people's impressions of it finally and so it doesn't really bother me. I think the only thing that bothers me is that kind of downloading and thinking of the album as a collection of songs as opposed to a cohesive sort of work... because AGALLOCH, we all grew up on headphones albums, on prog rock, you know, and thinking of albums as one cohesive statement and so, I think when it gets fragmented online and disseminated, either song by song or whatever, that's the only thing. But ultimately, people will buy it. I don't believe in the idea that this is going to ruin labels. I think people will still buy it because AGALLOCH fans are really interested in the aesthetics, I think, as well - they appreciate that."

Absolutely. Okay, now talk about the rarity of live shows, like you guys have played less than twenty shows total; are you planning on bumping that up or is it just something where you're just very selective about when and where you play?

"It's not really anything with selection, because we love playing live, it's a wonderful cathartic release, because there's really no cathartic release in the recording process. But the problem is that we all have such demanding lives outside the band, 'cause I'm a teacher and graduate student up in Seattle right now, Jason's a family man, got a year-old daughter now; so it's very hard to get time off for a sustained tour. We were able to do two small tours in the past and do a one off gig at Day of the Equinox and then this gig here 'cause it's Summer, so I'm off school, I'm not doing anything right now. Mainly it's just the school schedule, so I can really only do stuff during the breaks or over brief four day weekends or something, but we're hoping next Summer to do something a little more sustained, but it's nothing like we're selective or anything - we'll play anywhere, we're happy to play."

Any idea on who you would or would like to tour with?

"Oh god, we're kind of living our dream by opening for KATATONIA here, November third, I think. That's a dream come true - we love KATATONIA, I mean, we'd love to tour with KATATONIA; they probably would recognize half their riffs in our songs, but... (laughs) I really dig GIANT SQUID, you know. I'd like to go out with a really diverse package. I think tonight's a diverse package with WALDTEUFUL, GIANT SQUID and WOLVES (IN THE THRONE ROOM), so I think I'd like to so something with, like… PELICAN would be awesome. RED SPARROWS would be awesome, too."

Any possibility of playing Europe? Like maybe just a one-off at a festival or something?

"Yeah, we're currently sort of looking into the possibility of that, definitely. We'd love to get over there in Europe. That's always a possibility, too, just the right offers come along. We don't make any high demands by any means, as long as travel is paid for, we'll eat gas station food, you know. That's cool."

Okay, now here comes the part of the interview where I don't ask you that lame question about "what are your influences?", but ask you a spin-off question - how have the works of such bands like SOL INVICTUS and CURRENT 93 affected the way AGALLOCH writes songs.

"They've affected it a great deal. I mean, SOL INVICTUS is easily one of the most influential bands in terms of how we approach the acoustic guitar. Most Metal bands, if you look at bands like ULVER, EMPYRIUM, it's very classical sort of finger picking and SOL INVICTUS has a very wonderful sort of British, European Folk of more strumming, you know, so we're really into that. And when we got into that, we kind of followed that lineage to more Acid Folk bands like JEAN DUC DE GREY or COMUS or FOREST. And CURRENT 93 is my favorite band, I love CURRENT 93. I guess that we see that there's enough darkness and power in that music, because to me, SOL INVICTUS is a heavy band. Some of their albums are very heavy with distorted bass and drums and we're like 'fuck! SOL INVICTUS is a Metal band! Those chords are power chords and distortion.' These two genres, Neo-Folk and Black Metal or whatever, man, they're complimentary and our goal was to make sort of a Black Metal/Neo-Folk/Post Rock hybrid, 'cause we see those all really complimentary."

Okay, back to the influences, the influence the band's geography living in the Pacific Northwest has had. Obviously, there's a great deal of that, but could you go into a little bit of detail?

"Yeah, I grew up in Vancouver, Washington, John and Jason grew up in Montana and I think John and I just really love Portland. In the early part of 2000, we spent a lot of time hanging around Hawthorne here, going to independent theatres, eating pizza, drinking beer, going to shows and it seemed like for the size of the town, there was so much culture and such a genuine appreciation by the people who live here for that culture that it just seemed really honest and beautiful to me. Untouched, you know? Whereas with other places, San Francisco or whatever, it's very touristy; I don't feel that here. Because it's so easy to get... you can drive up to Mount Hood and there's snow, you can drive a hundred miles and there's the Pacific Ocean; there's so much beauty here. They say the weather affects your mood - it's always raining, it's always grey and so I think that definitely has an effect on the sort of melancholy, you know, it's very melancholy... and people call us Grey Metal, which I like, because I think that evokes more of the atmosphere than the music, which I'm fine with, 'cause it doesn't pigeon hole you or anything."

Okay. Due to the ridiculously high prices a lot of your out of print releases, like the "Of Stone, Wind and Pillor" EP are going for on eBay, are there any chances for a reissue, perhaps compiling that with the "Tomorrow Will Never Come" seven-inch, the stuff you did for the split ten-inch you did with NEST and so on?

"'Of Stone' I think has a very good chance of being re-released. I mean, it's nothing for sure yet, but I still think that's a quality major release of ours and I'd like to see it out there, 'cause I like the track, I like the SOL INVICTUS cover, so that will probably get reissued at some point. 'Tomorrow Will Never Come'... maybe someday in the future we'll do a big B-side compilation thing of all that stuff. The thing is, the seven-inch, the ten-inch - they're pretty minor material, even the 'Grey EP', like they were moments for us to really experiment and go off the deep end and try something new. And that's why they're sort of hated or loved; it was just something for us to try that didn't have the pressure of being a major release, so we could be like 'Let's just do this whole thing kind of Post-Rocky, let's do this whole thing with experimental electronics and stuff'. It just helped us ultimately be more focused for the major releases. So that's why they're so limited. I hate to see them go at high prices, it's just insane."

Okay, what happened to Shane Breyer (keyboardist/writer during AGALLOCH's early years)?

"He's like me; he's a grad student on the road to being a professor at some point, he currently lives in New York. I love his work, I love his stuff, I love the SUSURRUS INANIS demo. I think he's a wonderful musician - totally self-taught... but he kind of gave it up, he's like, 'I'm not really a musician.' But we've been trying to talk to him and get him back into it, 'cause we'd love to put out a SUSURRUS INANIS album of just Shane's stuff and we'd love for him to continue contributing to AGALLOCH, but I think he's just kind of doing the academic thing. So yeah, he's just on a sabbatical of sorts, I think you could say... hopefully he'll come back. Hopefully."

Did you ever think that AGALLOCH would attain the rabid cult following that it has?

"Do we have a rabid cult following?"

Well, we've got people from Texas flying in for this show.

"I know - that makes me so nervous. No, in the beginning, I know John was interested in keeping it really cult and esoteric and hard to find, 'cause we signed with The End in like '98 and when The End took off, of course they took all the bands with them. Originally, we wanted to be a little more esoteric. No, I never thought it would be like this. That's the cliché answer, I guess, but I'm happy. I'm happy the music has touched people enough to travel. That makes me very happy and satisfied with it, but I never thought it would happen." [FIN]