Greetings one and all, lurkers, sneaks, and watchers! For the next few posts here in the archive I’m going to give some commentary on the playlists I’ve made for each character, or set of characters as it sometimes the case, and hopefully give some insight into both the characters themselves and my own processes in creating them. Under normal circumstances I think song-by-song analysis is tedious, it was something I explicitly refused to do during my days as a music reviewer; however, I think in this circumstance a song-by-song break down will give the best insight into a character (woe to me when it comes time to write Jorgy’s commentary with over 700 songs and 30 hours’ worth of lo-fi music). Each playlist will get a spotlight, thus making sure characters like the Frostdóttirs have their day despite not yet having their own entry (yet).
Music, as you might have guessed, is very important to me both within and without writing. I used to write music reviews professionally and during that time I went from writing standard reviews about the sound quality, vocals, and entertainment value of music to something deeper. I began to look at music the way a literary theorist looks at text. I looked for narrative patterns, how production quality affected the flow of the music, how we the listener had a choice in what the music meant or didn’t mean, and so on. While I don’t do much music reviewing anymore, the idea stuck with me that music is text too, that it’s a story just as much as a book or a film or a series. That sort of mindset was how I went into creating these playlists. They not only inform the internal voice of the character, but the external forces pushing them. Some people, when making a character-based playlist, want to create a mood in which they create the character or in which they feel the characters attitudes. That’s a very good approach. It’s not what I do, but it’s still a good approach. I only bring this up because I don’t want it said or believed that I think my way of creating these is the only/best way. Each writer or creator has to make a playlist that suits them and their needs.
Without further ado, let’s get started. Frost, naturally, is up first. He’s the first character I really developed on NuPlaza (having no actual development or background from OP) and thus is probably my most complex and strange. I used mostly black metal for him with a few instances of film soundtracks or instrumental music. Frost is a very aggressive, very angry fellow and the black metal that I’ve picked speaks to that. Black metal is, after all, all about rebellion, being subversive and transgressive, and looking into the darker aspects of humans and philosophy. Sounds a bit like Frost, yeah?
1) Fire of Motion, Zeal & Ardor – You’re going to be getting a lot of Zeal & Ardor here so you might as well get used to them. Fire of Motion is the theme song, if one were inclined to call it that, for Frost. It’s catchy and kinetic, and very, very aggressive. While it’s a short song with only about 4 lines of lyrics, it’s a powerful song, enough to encompass the broad strokes of Frost as well as the nuances of his character.
2) Sorceress, Opeth – Expect to see a lot of Opeth here too, they’re one of my oldest favorites and have a ton of music to help bring out different aspects of Frost. Sorceress really points to Frost’s magickal nature as well as his genderfluidity. It’s a song about witchcraft and its control over the more religiously inclined.
3) Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer, Behemoth – Occult and satanic references, aggression, heresy, what more could a song do to represent Frost? He’s disdainful of any sort of devotion to the Valar or anything in “the West” in general, seeing it with a very Nietzschean worldview, religion is a stumbling block to true nobility
4) Golden Liar, Zeal & Ardor – I told you to expect them, right? Golden Liar comes from the latest album by Zeal & Ardor, it really speaks to the quiet intensity I like to think Frost embodies, with a lot of country/folk sounds and audio themes
5) Ov Fire and the Void, Behemoth – Another Behemoth song means more occult and satanic references, yay! This song in particular has a lot of pseudo-Christ like narration, Frost thinks he’s hot shire, it’s an arrogant and catchy song that plays well into Frost’s self-aggrandization
6) Reptile, Dimmu Borgir – One of my favorite songs from Dimmu and way back in their catalogue before “they went mainstream” and relied less on sweeping orchestral black metals sounds and gave a more intimate, intimidating sound. A song about serving the devil, it fits Frost’s personality and history (service to the Nazgûl and other sinister shadowy folk).
7) A Skin for Dancing In, Akercocke – You might recognize this song only because it’s the title of one his more interesting ongoing solo stories (his only one at the moment actually), arguably a song about possession, it’s a song that has a lot of erotic overtones, perfectly paired with the story that I’m writing and his overall personality
8) Son of the Morning, Dissection – Dissection, despite the front man being a complete asshole, was an amazing narrative band. Son of the Morning is an older part of the catalogue, a praise of the son of the morning (you can figure out who that is on your own), it embodies a lot of Frostian qualities about creating chaos and hopeless and darkness, etc.
9) Nemesis, Azaghal – A band I learned a lot about during my days as a reviewer, I found them mostly to be repetitive and uncreative, however Nemesis stands out from their entire discography as something catchy and unique. It uses both clean and harsh vocals and embodies a lot of aggression
10) The Somberlain, Dissection – My favorite song, bar none. Ostensibly, it’s a song from the point of view of the grim reaper, something Frost can get behind, especially the line “I’m eternal night, I’m the Somberlain, precede my evil, divine, domain”
11) Dusk and Her Embrace, Cradle of Filth – Probably the most recognizable song for nonmetal heads (or maybe just the band), this is the title track of an album devoted to retelling the story of Carmilla, a vampire story that predated Stoker and contained a lot of subversive sexual themes and lesbian eroticism, perfect for a character that is genderfluid and very active
12) Better Grieved than Fooled, Anata – Another of my favorite songs, it’s largely instrumental but the music is incredibly complex, technical, and aggressive
13) Dance of the Black Genii, Melechesh – A short instrumental track really meant as a transition piece both in the original album and here on the playlist, it’s dark and sinister with lots of folkloric implications
14) In Nomine Domine, Funeral Mist – Don’t let the name full you, this is not a Christian track (you’re not going to find anything like that in a playlist like this), in fact it has one of my favorite lines every “see now the brimstone of my psalms come alive” which evocates all sorts of evil apocalyptic rhetoric that Frost embodies
15) Delirium, Satyricon – The only track to actual features Frost, as in the real Frost, Kjetil-Vidar Haraldstad, naturally I have to include it, but it also embodies a sense of etherealness and trance-like vision that I want to be able to cultivate in Frost at times
16) Of Stars and Smoke, Candlemass – I love Candlemass and their brand of epic doom metal. This song has a lot of somewhat depressing, but also comforting philosophical points that informed Frost’s upbringing and his overall life philosophy
17) Bad Moon Rising, Minotaur Jr. – I’m a fan of the original song, and this cover track embodies the sinister, dark nature of the song very well. I heard it on Big Sky and fell in love with the way the lyrics and the melody meld
18) We Never Fall, Zeal & Ardor – This song only exists in live format, which gives it an energy that might be lacking in a studio release, it’s raw and aggressive (sensing a theme yet?)
19) Deathstroking/Creating an Army with a Needle, Blake Neely – While I think the Arrow series was largely a dud, the music was amazing, particular the theme music for Deathstroke, the music is confrontational and bombastic, when Frost wants something and gets angry about it, this is the music that plays in my head
20) Bloodfest, Brian Rietzell – Be honest, you know a Hannibal track was going to appear at some point. This track is beautiful and it overlays one of the most brutal scenes in Hannibal’s second season, both physically and emotionally
21) The Grand Conjuration, Opeth – Such a great track I named Frost’s ship after it. It’s a song about the consequences of summoning the devil, poignant, no?
22) Thy Raven Wings, My Dying Bride – Dark, gothic, and doomy, My Dying Bride are an essential part of the aesthetic that Frost as built, not to mention corvids
23) Riphon – The Tree of Assiyah Putrescent, Mephorash – Pure occultic goodness with a lot of sinister overtones whilst creating a rich, bombastic atmosphere
24) Cold Mouth Prayer, Marduk – I created this playlist and I’m shocked I didn’t add more Marduk, whose evil satanic message goes pretty hand in hand with Frost’s personality. Cold Mouth Prayer is hyper aggressive and hyper blasphemous
25) Erase, Zeal & Ardor – More Zeal & Ardor! The way Manuel delivers the line “I will erase your memory” is chilling, the whole song is a roller coaster of moods going from quiet to loud at the drop of a pin
26) Entering the Pylon ov Light, Behemoth – It belongs in Behemoth’s overproduced days of their discography but it’s still an amazing, on the nose representation of Frost
27) Chosen by No One, Nachtmystium – Despite Judd Nelson, the front man of Nachtmystium, being a scamming, grifting P.O.S., this album was amazing, throwing moody jazz with ambient black metal
28) Any Kind of Magic or Miracle, Anata – The last 2-3 minutes of this song are amazing, bar none. It’s weird, but it gets me emotional almost every time I hear it
29) Isolation, Altars of Grief – Slow and plodding, but dripping with deep meaning and deeper emotions, Isolation is the song that plays in Frost’s most introspective moments
30) Drink My Blood, Mindkult – At one point, Frost had some cannibalistic tendencies, they haven’t quite gone away so I can add this fuzzy doomy song about transubstantiation
31) Faith, Hope, Self-Deception, Anata – Frost’s overall belief about religion, made plain once more
32) Summoning Lupine, Leviathan – While much of Leviathan’s catalogue doesn’t interest me, this song gives me creepy vibes, which Frost has in spades
33) Evil Man, Doctor Smoke – Occult Rock is one of my favorite subgenres, and Doctor Smoke created the perfect anthem for Frost here
34) Lucifer’s the Light of the World, King Dude – King Dude is, well, a king. Going back to the vibe of Golden Liar from Zeal & Ardor, this song really amplifies it and infuses it with whisky blues
35) Black Bird Rising, Black Bird Rising – Someone I found tucked in a corner in Bandcamp in my days of reviewing, I found this song, indeed this entire EP to be a beautiful, soulful version of all the gothic blues I’ve listed here
36) What is a Killer Like You Gonna Do Here?, Zeal & Ardor – To round out this little excursion into bluesy devil rock, I have one of my favorites from the first Zeal & Ardor album
37) SHERlocked, David Arnold – A nice little piece I added to connect Tara’s Zôr character (modeled after Laura Pulver) to Frost
38) Sacrilegium I, Zeal & Ardor – An odd sort of hip-hop esque piece from Zeal & Ardor’s first album, one of the tracks that really told you “we aren’t like every other black metal band”
39) Verbis Diaboli, Khaospath – I heard about Khaospath during my days as a reviewer and soon the front man became a very good friend of mine, this album is what I call Shakespearean Black Metal
40) The Storm I Ride, I – Sometimes, even Frost needs to let loose and be bombastic
41) Directionless Resurrectionist, A Forest of Stars – Probably the band I know the least about, A Forest of Stars still has a wonderful, atmospheric quality to them, a sinister sound that would not be out of place in a folk horror soundtrack
42) Sewages of the Mind, Anata – More Anata, more religious disdain
43) The Pacific, AHAB – There’s a lot of metal that focuses on the sea and the ocean, but no one quite hits the mark like AHAB, they know exactly what sort of music is needed to personify the sea
44) My Eternal Grief, Anguish Never Ending, Nargaroth – A relatively famous act within black metal that I actually got to interact with during my reviewer days, Nargaroth has been able to change and adapt to the current sounds of black metal with every album
45) Ballade Auf Den Tod, Ellende – Moody, atmospheric black metal with lots of folkish elements, gives some depth to Frost’s introspection
46) Children of the Urn, Funeral Mist – Funeral Mist knows how to create a creepy atmosphere that would feel right at home in a horror film while still feeling aggressive and mean spirited
47) Fires in the Dark, Enslaved – Enslaved know exactly how to craft their aesthetic, album after album, this particular track adds some weight to the many emotions that Frost experiences
48) Winter Thrice, Borknagar – I gave this title to one of the Frostdóttirs’ stories not only because I love the mood and atmosphere, but also because it connects with Frost’s shifting emotional state
49) The First Snow, Lustre – I didn’t add as much atmospheric black metal as I could have, or that I really wanted, so when I added this one I wanted it to convey all the emotional depth I could cram into a single song
50) Dualism, Spectral Lore – As with the above song, I wanted to do my best to find a song that encapsulated Frost’s less aggressive and sinister side while still giving him a sharp edge
51) Fenris Gangr, Arckanum – And we’re back to mean and aggressive, the lofi production here gives the music (and thus Frost’s atmosphere) a bestial, feral edge
52) The Fields of Reckoning, Winterfylleth – I will go out of my way to justify adding Winterfylleth to a playlist, just listen to it and tell me it doesn’t belong, I dare you
53) Beyond Light – Beautiful and Malignant, Twilight – The final track of the playlist, it had to be one that packed a punch. Twilight is a US black metal supergroup composed of some of the biggest underground names, several of them have appeared elsewhere on this playlist, this track exemplifies the creeping, sinister atmosphere I’ve been going for, along with the aggressive, showiness that Frost is so well known for
So there you have it, a 53 track playlist that clocks in at just over 5 hours long, it’s a journey, complicated and twisty, in the mind of a character I’ve devoted (probably too much) time to. There’s no way to really boil his character down into a simple list of traits, but hopefully this list, this collection of sounds and texts, give you an insight into his mind and the way I want to portray him.
"We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes have yet to open... Fear the Old Blood..."
Looking forward to seeing how his life story will unfold.
I will prolly not read it then, but glad you have a way of processing :)
If you want that I read Kroda's adventures, I'll do it for you. I am doing it with Rivvy's China story as well, to his and mine joy. 
And 
Aside of that, back to you. Honestly I have little on hands at home, nobody to talk to than myself. I take a liking in utterly complex characters, either developed by myself or written by others. I'll be happy to read yours and learn Kroda the Brogiaur who she is. 
well done for keeping up the patience to write that much, I am impressed. I look forward to seeing your Valinorean POV as well.
