1865 // 1895: Cast.Iron.Blood - John Haughm (2020)

Haughm led a band called Agalloch. If you’re not into metal, or not into the nerdy corners of black / post / folk metal hybrids, then you might not have heard of them. But Agalloch were one of my favorite metal bands of this century. Haughm seems–anecdotally and without knowing much about it–to be a difficult person to get along with. Personality clashes seem to have broken up Agalloch, as well as the next band he started. So lately he’s been doing things under his own name.

The sticker on the physical copy says this is a “haunting, dystopian 19th century soundtrack.” I’m not really sure what makes it 19th century, other than the track titles and some train sounds, but I guess points for not just putting a banjo and a fiddle in it and saying it’s old-timey.

There’s a fair amount of doom metal and ambient drone, some soundscaping and random guitar noise, and the occasional nod to the chilly black metal from his previous bands. It plays a lot with contrasts: gloom and beauty, noise and quiet, harmony and dissonance. A very well executed hunk of music, as long as you don’t mind a little gloom and anxiety with your beauty.

Tracks I liked:

A River Of Iron Flows Where Once The Gallows Stood - it’s a solid track that’s probably the closest we get to Agalloch’s sound. But man, that’s a metal-as-fuck title. I just wanted to type it.

The Scars Maketh The Man - Sounds a lot like Tim Hecker. Slowly building layers of sound. I imagine it’s no accident that the longest tracks with the most space to stretch out are the best.