If I were to recommend any black metal band to people I would choose the following: Enslaved, Emperor, Deafheaven, and Agalloch to start out. The latter of which i will be talking about today. To celebrate the holidays, though I might be a little late, I will be making the last album review of the year. The Serpent and the Sphere is the Portland suit's newest in 2014. Much like Meshuggah's Koloss, it is an album that combines much of the previous works of the last four albums, in terms of Agalloch. I rated it the album of the year as well.

1, The Birth and Death of the Pillars of Creation, the second longest track one here and my favorite of the bunch. This does start out reletively slow but it progresses overtime. Not much lyrical content for a ten minute song either. From what is shown, it talks about a man, possibly god, that creates a set of pillars that seem to be legendary. This is storytelling in just a few words. Not very complex either.

2, (serpens caput), just a transition. It is only about three minutes long and consists of nothing but an accoustic guitar. It is a very pretty little transistion might I add. In a first listen, it may seem much longer than it really is though.

3, The Astral Dialogue, the first "heavy" track on the list. Well at least the first that isn't likely to bore you, though I was clearly fine, it ups the anti and goes a bit more like traditional Black Metal in a sense. They still do have their signature atmospheric style equipped, so, nothing to fret. Much faster than the previous ones in the set. Don't expect it to be some amazing epic or anything, it isn't. I do love this song.

4, Dark Matter Gods, this one starts out with a much more melodic guitar style that many Agalloch fans should be used to by The Mantle album. It does cresendo well as well into the chorus part of the song. Much like what metal is mostly about, nice complex songs that takes a genius to understand the theme, it is just that mostly on the composition part of the music.

5, Celestial Effigy, this starts out with a nice guitar groove and a pounding drum beat. The entire track matches to an almost unison for a while and then gets to the main part of the song which progresses well might I add. The song continues to amaze me. Alot of people think this is the best in the album.

6, Cor Serpentis (The Sphere), yet another transitional track. Much like track 2, this consists of nothing but a guitar plucking away at the strings. A more "frantic" beat to say the least and surely tops the last one.

7, Vales Beyond Dimension, it starts out interestingly. To be perfectly honest, this is probably the weakest of the nine in the album. It doesn't keep the album from perfect, but if it were more memorable, I would love this a bit more. Well, never mind that, It is still a good track no the less.

8, Plateau of the Ages, the longest track in the album, standing at a whopping twelve whole minutes. Just twelve munites of instruments no vocals, though it is the classic black metal vocals anyways. I would say this is the second best in the album for sure. Though because it's an instrumental track, if you don't like songs that are purely instrumental, then skip it. Make sure though you give it one shot first.

9, (Serpens Cauda), the last and most atmospjeric of them all. The final track and closing to such a wonderful album. Instead of the last two consisting of just the guitar, it does have sound effects to add to the atmosphere. Such beauty can only be accomplished by a metal band. My first black metal review has now come to a close. This has been the Grim Reaper and I will see you guys with Between the Buried and Me Self Titled.

10/10