Dwarrowdelf has all the right ingredients for epic black metal. Long songs, great instrumentation, clean and harsh vocals, soaring passages, competent musicianship, and production to match. It's where all these things come together though where I find that this release falters some.
It's no singular thing that makes this release feel off. It could be a singular part of a riff - the vocals in a specific section - maybe the keyboards come in too early or too late - maybe a drum beat doesn't quite fit. It seems like most of the tracks have at least something that seems... off.
The music itself is decent. At their core the melodies are good. There are all the right ingredients here for this release to excel... it just doesn't quite do it for me.
Where the band does excel is the ambient/dungeon synthesque passages. These portions of the album where all the metal is stripped away and the keyboards are allowed to shine on their own are truly wonderful. If Dwarrowdelf released an album purely done on keyboard I think it could be quite excellent. As it stands though Of Dying Lights is a collection of unrealized potential.
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