Style: Epic metal, instrumental, dungeon synth?
Primary Emotions/Themes: Wandering forgotten lands
Thoughts: One could be forgiven thinking this album was a dungeon synth album by the way it starts out. A lonely, reverb heavy melody played on a keyboard breaks the silence for several measures before anything else happens - classic dungeon synth. The illusion is shattered though when guitars and drums come in - playing a slow tempo back beat with power chords over top. It's as simple as the keyboard melody, but works for what it is.
The song continues to build with black metal shrieks saying nothing in particular, only adding to the atmosphere and overall feel of the song. The same thing happens with a female voice a minute or so later. Instead of any lyrics the voices merely spew forth notes or things resembling words... nothing is ever clear. I often say with extreme music that the voice is just another instrument, here that is 100% the case as all of the songs are instrumental... with vocals.
And that's the essence of the eighty minutes of this album. The songs meander about for ten to fifteen minutes with the two singers creating the focal point of the music. The keyboards will often take lead when the vocals are not present, but they are rarely all present at the same time. Either one or the other has the lead.
Where this record goes astray is in its length. The idea itself is very cool and fun to listen to, but when it goes on for fifteen minutes straight at the same pace with the same melodies and the same concepts... it wears out its welcome a bit. This is a bit ironic as I find that I sometimes will enjoy songs in the dungeon synth genre exactly for those same reasons. However, here they have the opposite effect.
Maybe it's the song writing, maybe its the fact that these songs are metal and not dungeon synth. Maybe it's just that I prefer pure dungeon synth sometimes. Whatever the reason this album is too long for my tastes.
When I do listen it's usually to one LP or the other, rarely both in succession. If I treat this album like two smaller albums rather than one long one it goes a lot further with me. Maybe that's how I'll look at this album from now on, instead of a double LP it'll be part one and part two of the same title.
Written February 22nd 2024
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