Style: ambient, dungeon synth
Primary Emotions/Themes: the title says it all
Thoughts: Long drawn out melodies. Droning pads that never seem to end. Expansive soundscapes that call to mind the great beyond.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It's the recipe for most ambient projects since the dawn of time. Throw in a few nods to actual melodies and some well defined keyboards and you get a combination of dungeon synth with dark ambient. This is exactly the realm that Bergtatt traverses.
As generic and potentially boring as all this sounds, Bergtatt is exactly the opposite. The music found on Traversing Celestial Realms avoids all the trappings of drone and dark ambient that make them monotonous. By adding in a small amount of dungeon synth the album moves from predictable and uninspiring to an album that I have frequented many times in the past few days.
What differentiates this album from so many of the others in this field is how impactful the brief moments of melody are. For instance, the first few minutes of the album contain nothing but a droning tone that varies slightly from moment to moment. Just when it starts to wear out its welcome a triumphant melody interjects itself on top and gives form where there was once none. It's a beautiful wake up call and its the start of what will become the core of the entire album.
This interplay between drone and melody continue for the entire thirty minutes. It's a delicate ebb and flow that few artists utilize and fewer still have mastered. The melodies are so sparse and delicate that whey they come in I'm immediately drawn to them. The ambience is the prefect counter point and offers just enough variety that the album is never dull. Easily a standout album in both the dungeon synth and the dark ambient fields.
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