Falloch – Where Distant Spirits Remain

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As excellent as Alcest is, they’re now unfortunately beginning to breed a new generation of bands who call themselves black metal while retaining none of its essential qualities. Scotland’s Falloch are one such band, and their debut LP Where Distant Spirits Remain owes its biggest sonic debt to Alcest’s Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde. But where that record was still driven largely by Burzum-like drumming and tremolo picked riffs even within its dreamlike, acoustic context, the Falloch album has no black metal to it. It masquerades as metal by trying to claim it has the same qualities as Alcest and Agalloch, but it is, in actual fact, a folk album made by metal dudes. This isn’t inherently bad; Green Carnation‘s Acoustic Verses is a modern masterpiece. It’s just that Falloch aren’t that good at it. There’s moments of real beauty on Where Distant Spirits Remain, but they’re lost among lengthy songs that try too hard to create a dramatic atmosphere to too little effect. That this album somehow permits Falloch to call themselves a metal band is the most disappointing fact. It’s unfair to the likes of Alcest and Agalloch to call such an unequivocally mellow act a part of the same genre. As a folk album, Falloch’s first record is decent, but no honest sentence about it can begin with the clause “as a metal album.”

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2011, Albums, Black Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Falloch