In my opinion, Ashes Against The Grain is a conceptual album by Agalloch, and the songs are all linked together by the same theme... This one is a continuation of the song Falling Snow, where the character died and his body was buried beneath a mountain of snow... The lyrics here refer to "the woeful silence" in the landscape right after his death; "the icy fortress" being the snow mountain where his body lies; and the "sky fire above" might be related to the red birds that came out of his wounds from the previous song, but I'm not sure... The rest of the lyrics is a description of his soul going forward to the "citadel at the end of time", whatever that means!
[Edit: It's just a theory of mine, but I think "Ashes Against The Grain" is in turn a continuation of "The Mantle", they make a lot of sense together!]
In my opinion, Ashes Against The Grain is a conceptual album by Agalloch, and the songs are all linked together by the same theme... This one is a continuation of the song Falling Snow, where the character died and his body was buried beneath a mountain of snow... The lyrics here refer to "the woeful silence" in the landscape right after his death; "the icy fortress" being the snow mountain where his body lies; and the "sky fire above" might be related to the red birds that came out of his wounds from the previous song, but I'm not sure... The rest of the lyrics is a description of his soul going forward to the "citadel at the end of time", whatever that means!
[Edit: It's just a theory of mine, but I think "Ashes Against The Grain" is in turn a continuation of "The Mantle", they make a lot of sense together!]