Agalloch – The Mantle/Ashes Against the Grain
Arguably the preemptive autumn band, even Agalloch’s covers even imbue the changing of season with misty grays and Autumnal hues, and that’s before you even listen to the music. Once you do hit ‘play’, you are whisked away to mist filled, chilly dawns, reddened foreboding dusks and brisk crisp nights of quiet beauty. The poetic nature of Agalloch’s lyrics and music also brings in the pre winter peace that autumn carries with it as well as the menace of oncoming frosts and snows.

Tehni – Maaäet
This album IS Autumn. As perfectly summed up by my associate Apollyon here , Maaäet is a minimalist yet evocative album of natural and almost transcendental music, that cries to be listened to in its entirety out in the woods at dusk. Its a stunning mood album that soothes with a solemn organic palette perfect for this time of year. If you have not heard this album yet, now is literally the time to experience it.

Borknagar – Borknagar
Another cover that cries Autumn, Borknagar’s quirky, more folky debut with its superb little filler interludes just reminds me of fur clad, bearded men sitting around a fireon a frozen lake in the dusk hours, talking and eating sausage as the fire fends off the night and the cold of winter.

Ulver – Bergtatt
Unlike their current sound, Ulver’s debut LP is a tour de force of melancholic, folky black metal highlighted by Garm’s unmatchable croons. Aided by the fact that Norway and surrounding countries seem to be in a perpetual state of fall (you’ll notice no bands from California on this list), the music that comes from there, much like Autumn seems to often be fueled by a sweeping, majestic yet barren beauty-and that feeling is encapsulated by this album.

Finntroll – Visor Om Slutlet
An acoustic EP riddled with sorrow due to the death of band member Somnium, Visor Om Slutlet (Songs about the End), is a sprightly but solemn jaunt of campfire ditties that make me envision the Finntroll lads in a small hut in the middle of the forest.

Dusk – Majestic Thou In Ruin
When a band called Dusk (now called Aphotic) actually samples the evening hours as birds head to roost and the sun head below the skyline, the only season it fits is the Fall. A loping, drawn out doom album littered with organic and natural sounds and prose, majestic Thou In Ruin was nestled between Disembowelment’s Transcendence Into The Peripheral and Morgion’s Among Majestic Ruin (both released on Relapse) in the US doom scene, and thus got sort of slightly overlooked thought it fits the season far better than either.

Wolves in the Throne Room – Two Hunters
An album from a band where the weather seems to be stuck in a state of everlasting fall, and a band that seems to have some early Ulver-ish hues, you can literally feel the damp leaves crunch under foot and breath the mist of the Pacific Northwest on this blackened but organic and ambient sophomore album.

Primordial – The Gathering Wilderness
What’s more Autumn-y than the windswept, craggy Irish landscape and epic tales of yore delivered with a rustic, natural yet barren tone and gruff vocals? Primordial’s sound is perfect for the Fall and The Gathering Wilderness, with it’s title, cover and rangy epic tracks is an almost transcendental journey into the season mood and feel. Grim, but beautiful.

Opeth– anything
Is there a more Fall-like band than Opeth? Light/dark. Soft/harsh. Solemn/savage. Especially early releases like Orchid and Morningrise which seemed composed just for such a season. With their early sound and artwork, Opeth’s package is complete for Fall listening, Akerfeldt’s vocal duality, the musical transtitions between the elegance and the menacing match the season’s transitional hues to a T; the wavering colors of Spring and the onset of Winter’s bleakness. Just perfect.

I’m sure some of you have other suggestions, so go ahead and comment with your thoughts and additions.