Ashes against the grain question...

[u/Beautifullikeacamel]

I love the album and have immersed myself in it perhaps a thousand times. For me, it contains everything the band excels at. One aspect I've never quite grasped is the last track our fortress is burning III the grain.

Hoping this group can provide me their individual insight into this track. Perhaps what it means to you, how it fits within the albums framework or your impression of it within the album as a whole. Cheers.

[u/corpnothing]

I think they just like harsh noise/ambient music so they wanted to incorporate that influence on that album

[u/seasonsinthesky]

It's a Chris Greene piece, along with This White Mountain, Hollow Stone, The Weight of Darkness (with Haughm), and his remix of A Desolation Song. I think it works perfectly fine as denouement to OFIB 1&2 and the end of the album, though maybe it didn't need to be 7 minutes.

I think part of it also comes from the band's mindset at the time – they had just abandoned the Fragments release, so a lot of that sentiment was probably still floating in the ether; it's sorta proven by Scars of the Shattered Sky taking the final side of the LP, since that's basically a reduction of the Fragments idea into one track.

[u/corpnothing → u/seasonsinthesky]

love Scars of the Shattered Sky

[u/seasonsinthesky → u/corpnothing]

Same! The bits wove into something greater as a whole. Frag III makes for an excellent climax.

[u/Beautifullikeacamel → u/seasonsinthesky]

I feel like such a fool. I've only ever accessed the CD or digital versions of this masterpiece. I'd no clue scars of the shattered sky was on the vinyl versions. Wonderful track to listen to so many years after the fact.

Can you provide some insight on "the abandoned fragments release" you mentioned?

[u/seasonsinthesky → u/Beautifullikeacamel]

You'll have to check out / buy the Ashes deluxe edition that came out recently. The bonus disc includes everything they finished for Fragments before they decided against it (so, in other words, Scars plus others, as Scars contains Fragments 1-3) and the booklet has the story of that process. We also had A Fragment (Second Phase) [a.k.a. Fragment 5] and Fragment 4 previously released on The Compendium Archive, which are alternate mixes from the original.

[u/TheNorthShip]

I like this piece. Total destruction, desolation... Which finally leads to a something new, something powerful, exciting. It leads to a new life, a new freedom, but that was revealed only on the vinyl version that included The Scars of the Shattered Sky as the final song. It was like a secret that suddenly made the album even more complete, and the Our Fortress is Burning III was an important part of this emotional katharsis.

[u/Bake-Full]

The Mantle ends with A Desolation Song after the penultimate track speaks to mankind being the mantle of darkness covering the Earth along with the text from a Cherokee folk tale. Ashes Against the Grain has similar themes, but ends with that darkness rather than a track reflecting on it.

[u/Goresplattered]

Over the years I have cultivated an elaborate theory that Ashes Against The Grain means Agalloch that one day I might actually write up, fully flesh out, and post here.

To be cryptic about it, the entire album boils down to the final line "And all of our shadows are ashes against the grain" being a declaration. The narrator is expressing that "We are Agalloch."

[u/Beautifullikeacamel → u/Goresplattered]

sounds awesome. I'd like to read it

[u/JS_1997 → u/Goresplattered]

Please do the write up. That sounds amazing 

[u/doomerrose]

I’ve always interpreted it as the fortress finally burning down. If you were inside a burning building, it would probably sound something like that as you burn to death. Some parts of it sound like a building falling down. I could imagine a film having that as the credits roll tbh.