Entry 717 - Druidan Forest - Dismal Spells from the Dragonrealm

Style: Dungeon synth

Primary Emotions/Themes: Epic expansive sounds and landscapes

Thoughts: There are very few dungeon synth projects that accurately emulate the early days. The times before things became more intricate, more nuanced. The olden days where it was just a troll in a dungeon making dark music. Druidan Forest is one of the very few active artists that can claim to match the sound of the 90's darkwave style.

Dismal Spells is comprised of four songs, each one of them spanning nearly twenty minutes in length. Each one of them is akin a different chapter in the same book. Each one contains several smaller themes within the larger composition, but the tone of the track remains largely the same throughout. 

These songs go back to the early days of the genre. The days where Mortiis was one of the only people writing in this style. In fact Dismal Spells has a strong resemblance to the first Mortiis full length. It borrows much from both the song writing as well as the production.

The songs have simple melodies that are repeated minutes on end. They are slowly transitioned into other similar styles or complete ambience to fill out the rest of the track time. While in theory this sounds horrendously boring, much like the early to mid 90's material this is incredibly compelling in execution.

The melodies are broken up by spoken word sections that bring some context into the world that we are given an audio glimpse of - the Dragonrealm as it were. Despite its long run time I often find myself listening from front to back  without any sense of the album being overdone or overstaying its welcome. 

When I first got back into dungeon synth - or dark dungeon music as it was once called - Druidan Forest had a split with Old Sorcery. This was the split that I heard and I instantly fell back in love with the genre. It reminded me  of the wonderful compositions from the 90's and it filled me with a deep nostalgia. That nostalgia is perpetuated by Dismal Spells from the Dragonrealm, I truly wish more artists were this good in the dungeon synth genre.

Written February 22nd 2024