Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit teaser tracks

 If you only listen to two songs today, listen to these.  It would be too hard to follow them up with anything anyway.  Two tracks from the soon to be released Marrow of the Spirit album from Agalloch.  Their last album, 2008's Ashes Against the Grain was in my top ten of the year and my anticipation levels for this have been intensifying as the release date gets nearer without anything to actually help them on, but last week Brandon Stousy posted a preview track and short interview on his Haunting The Chapel Stereogum column - with a preamble that can only be described as feverish.

So here's the track he posted up - The Watcher's Monolith, and another; Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires that is more of a departure from their previous sound that The Watcher, with a faster, punkier beat from new drummer Aesop Dekker.  No one else sounds like this; it's utterly beautiful and absorbing, trance inducing winter music.

FFFF: Krieg - All Paths To God

Stereogum posted this track a while ago, but it's going to be today's Fast and Furious Friday Feature, because the album - The Isolationist - is only a month away and I've been listening to this track a lot more recently in anticipation. The renaissance in black metal across the entire world continues to redefine the genre and visionary artists such as Krieg continue to illuminate minds with their inspired blaze of hostile black fire.  This track begins with a guttural, grinding bassline definitively black metal in essence, yet punching from a shifted paradigm of tone and dynamic that USBM has positioned itself in over the last few years. The mid-section acknowledges the wintery old school then around 4 minutes there comes a total change in direction, atmosphere and pace that is an absolutely shocking stroke of genius:

Download the Real Player file from Stereogum:  HERE