Entry 1018 - Depressive Silence - I

Style: Dungeon synth, dark dungeon music

Primary Emotions/Themes: Epic landscapes and tales of ancient times demand music that represent and extol their values... this is that music

Thoughts: The first time I heard the genre now known as dungeon synth I thought it was more like a super long intro to a black metal album. I don't know it I truly enjoyed it or not, I do remember laughing more than once at how long the songs were without much "substance." This mostly revolved around Mortiis and  Wongraven at the time, it wasn't until much later that I found out about the wonderful project known as Depressive Silence.

Depressive Silence for lack of a better term are some of the OG's. They were doing this shit way before any of it was cool, and they did a damn good job of it. What is billed here as their first album is actually a split that they did with The Mightiest. In fact Ral and B.S. were both in The Mightiest at the time of the split. 

Unlike the Mightiest there is no black metal (outside of a few vocal lines) anywhere in these three epic tracks. This is pure keyboard driven music, and it embodies everything that I love about dungeon synth to this very day. 

Long, overly drawn out compositions that don't really know when to end? Yes, that is defiantly the case here. Simple melodies that are repeated over and over again? Present and accounted for. Mistakes in the keyboard playing that make the music sound a bit more rough? That's here too. 

In any normal environment these would all be detractors to music, but in dungeon synth they are some of the main draws for me. I love how honest and raw the music feels. I love how hap hazard and thrown together it sounds. I love the fact that it sounds like it was recorded in someones basement on a cheap keyboard they got in the 80's. I love all of this, and more. 

I read an article recently on how music these days is sounding more and more similar. Things are over produced and popular music is intentionally less and less offensive to the ears in any way shape or form. Now more than ever songs are being written to make money, and the art is secondary. 

Dungeon synth is the antithesis of all of this. It is written because the people writing the music love it. It is written with a deep passion and is played with mistakes. It feels human, it feels organic and raw. It has as little processing in it as possible. This is what real music is.