Agalloch: Best album to start with?

Other Dark Metal or stuff that is similiar or could be considered Dark Metal. Tiamat-clouds,wildhoney,old Katatonia, mid Paradise Lost,Cemetary-godless beauty,Amorphis-tales from the thousand lakes.
 
Other Dark Metal or stuff that is similiar or could be considered Dark Metal. Tiamat-clouds,wildhoney,old Katatonia, mid Paradise Lost,Cemetary-godless beauty,Amorphis-tales from the thousand lakes.

What about Alcest? I've seen them listed as a similar band to Agalloch, would they fit the dark metal label?

Im thinking about giving Alcest a shot too after I listen to Agalloch some more. Have heard nothing but good things about them.
 
Pantera had an album called Power Metal. Clearly everyone else is just doing it wrong, right?

They did play heavy/power metal once, so....

Rotting Christ call themselves dark metal as well. I think it's a fairly vague term for metal bands that use harsh vocals but lack the aggression to fit into the extreme metal spectrum.

Rotting Christ are clearly a black metal band. They did start as grindcore but since Passage to Arcturo they did black metal in the way greeks does it. They had an experimental period since A Dead Poem thru Sanctus Diavolos but now they just do black metal with folk elements.

Agalloch is dark metal in the same way Empyrium has been tagged. It's a mix of primarily black, folk and doom elements. In fact, I used to describe Agalloch as a mix of early Ulver and Empyrium.
 
Im thinking about giving Alcest a shot too after I listen to Agalloch some more. Have heard nothing but good things about them.

Really? Well I can tell you something negative about them if you insist.
 
What about Alcest? I've seen them listed as a similar band to Agalloch, would they fit the dark metal label?

Im thinking about giving Alcest a shot too after I listen to Agalloch some more. Have heard nothing but good things about them.

I've never heard Alcest. So I don't really know. Dark Metal to me is stuff that is metal, dark, but has a wide range of metal and non metal infleunces. And does not really fit being labelled as a specific sub-genre because it's different/new for the time and it hard to label. And I feel like Agalloch is indeed a Dark Metal band and a good example of continuation of influences that other bands had that ended up being labelled as Dark Metal.
 
Really? Well I can tell you something negative about them if you insist.

I'll probably start a similar thread for Alcest and maybe you can post it there. Don't want this thread to derail from the Agalloch discussion.
 
Other Dark Metal or stuff that is similiar or could be considered Dark Metal. Tiamat-clouds,wildhoney,old Katatonia, mid Paradise Lost,Cemetary-godless beauty,Amorphis-tales from the thousand lakes.

Uhhhhhhhhhhh no.

Tiamat - Clouds and Wildhoney are doom
old Katatonia is dark metal, but that's because it's a mixture of doom and black metal.
Mid Paradise Lost is goth rock / synth pop.
Amorphis... dark metal? Tales from the Thousand Lakes wasn't even dark, it was a pretty damn happy metal outside of the growled vocals.

Some of those existed before the term dark metal even existed.

Bringing up Pantera's album Power Metal is silly because Power Metal was NOT named after that Pantera album but Dark Metal WAS named after the Bethelehem album.

You guys are a bit clueless. Even using the term dark metal should be terms for being laughed out of the stadium. Go check out what wikipedia considers dark metal. Tool? Iron Maiden? Anthrax? Judas Priest?

Dark metal is a shitty term, don't say it.
 
I've never heard Alcest. So I don't really know. Dark Metal to me is stuff that is metal, dark, but has a wide range of metal and non metal infleunces. And does not really fit being labelled as a specific sub-genre because it's different/new for the time and it hard to label. And I feel like Agalloch is indeed a Dark Metal band and a good example of continuation of influences that other bands had that ended up being labelled as Dark Metal.

So, to you, dark metal is a personal umbrella term for anything you are too ignorant to properly categorize?
 
Dark metal is a shitty term, don't say it.

I agree with this. There is no definition to the expression "dark metal" to make it worthy of using. Another example, I find, is "speed metal". While clearly defined by some there are multiple definitions and some clash quite heavily with eachother. When we speak of genres like black, death, heavy, power, and doom the ramifications are quite clear. With dark and speed not so much.
 
Dark Metal is Dark Metal. If you do not get it, whatever, fuck you.
 
After listening to it a couple of times I can see why so many recommended Ashes Against the Grain to start. Just like The Mantle, the album is amazing yet it is more heavy on the guitars and seems to lean more into black metal territory on some parts. It is full of win tho, "Falling Snow" and "Not Unlike The Waves" are definitely standout tracks.

Agalloch is kicking my ass right now.