Former Agalloch Frontman Launches New Band Pillorian

We won’t blame you if you found this past spring’s Agalloch drama a bit hard to follow, so here’s a quick recap: first, Agalloch broke up, or so it seemed. Hours later, frontman John Haughm took to the band’s Facebook to say the band wasn’t breaking up, but all the members except him were leaving. Then two days later he changed his mind and said he would “permanently put the band to rest.” Probably better off that way; best to put the band to rest rather than sully its incredible legacy with spats between members and ex-members.

In August, ex-band members Don Anderson (guitar), Jason Walton (bass) and Aesop Dekker (drums) announced they’d launched a new project, Khôrada, with vocalist Aaron John Gregory, formerly of Giant Squid. We have yet to hear any music from Khôrada, but the band promises it will be different from Agalloch, and a recent Facebook post indicates they’ll be heading into the studio soon with live dates coming next summer.

And what of old John Haughm? Metal Injection tells us he’s got a new outfit called Pillorian with Stephen Parker (Maestus, ex-Arkhum) and Trevor Matthews (Uada, ex-Infernus), and the band plans to release their debut album Obsidian Arc on March 10 via Eisenwald. A 7″ featuring one track from the album and a B-side will arrive on February 10th. The band has several live dates lined up in Europe listed on their Facebook page (in the regular feed, not in the “Tour Dates” tab).

If things shake out right we’ll get new music from both Khôrada and Pillorian in 2017, which will be a fun exercise in “compare and contrast” and also, hopefully, a great, great thing for our ears.