Agalloch - In the shadow of our pale companion

Be aware that I might be telling a lie here. Meaning that things might not have happened exactly like how I'll describe them, but there might be some mitigating circumstances - it's possible I was maybe a bit drunk, and this might also have been close to twenty years now as well.

Be that as it may, my dear friend Sérgio has another friend called Ricardo, if I'm remembering right. Now, this might not be his name after all, I only did meet him the once, and maybe heard about him once or twice throughout the years. We all met for drinks in this dive that no longer exists, where the goth and cyber-goth and heavy-metal dudes used to go back in the day. If my memory serves me well, this was one of those proper metal guys - long hair, black clothes, sweat-shirts of obscure Norwegian black-metal bands, the whole deal. And I do remember that amidst all the hubbub we did manage to talk quite a bit, not only about music - I'd been veering away from metal around that time, so already there were plenty of bands that I knew nothing of - but also about other things; both of them were taking their degrees in philosophy, and although I might not have been to catch up with everything, it was still a solid, entertaining conversation.

And it's from that very same conversation that I gather I heard the name Agalloch for the first time. I don't know. I can kinda sorta remember it being mentioned. I didn't pay any attention to it at the time, just another in an infinite slew of weird sounding bands. It remained somewhere in the back of my mind.

A few years later, circa 2006/7 I followed a blog - no links from me, I can't stand the guy - that, unfortunately for me, was far more interesting than my own back then, and the guy piled good music upon good music there. I'm fairly certain he posted some Agalloch there. Fairly. Can't be 100% sure. So somehow, I'd dredged up the name from the depths of my mind and turned to my ol' pal e-Mule and got their discography. Sure, I might've played something or the other here and there, but I left it mostly untouched. Years go by, and it's now 2013 - the dark year - and one of the few good things to come out of that depression was the amount of music I listened to, their updated discography included.

They're a dangerous band for me, evoking in me the same feelings that 'Into the wild', 'White Fang', Leaves of Grass', 'Walden' and other works of the same genre do - that temptation to leave everything behind and eke out a living from mother nature itself.

Then I remember who and what I am and realize I'd probably die on day one.

I'm always fairly envious of notorious reclusive writers like Thomas Pynchon, J.D. Salinger or Cormac McCarthy, who mostly eschew from living in a social way, and instead live their lives according their own desires. It might also help being a bestselling novelist in order to afford such a life, though. I should maybe try to get into that racket someday.