Resounding Footsteps - A Look into Musical Analysis

[The Good Hunter]

Many ages ago (okay more like 4 years) I was a music reviewer. I reviewed all sorts of black metal, dark ambient, and dungeon synth and even afforded myself a tiny smidgen of popularity. I was good at what I did. I didn't just say "this music was bad" these riffs were heavy and killer" I went deeper and analyzed the music, the sounds, the environment, and the atmosphere. I went deeper than most reviewers were willing to go. If you thought some of my RP posts could be long, you have no idea how long my reviews could get. I stopped when the scenes I was a part in got too divided and I was getting pulled in each direction and in part because I couldn't keep enduring all the awful music people would randomly send me.

Recently though, thanks to my own musings over things past and a conversation with @Zôrzimril, I've decided to revive the old name and logo and write my musical analysis here. Now I know a lot of you, okay most of you, aren't going to enjoy must of what I write about because black metal, dark ambient, and dungeon synth are very acquired tastes. Still, I hope you'll stick around and read about the music because I'll have the freedom to write about the music that I feel passionate about instead of fulfilling an agreement between myself and the band. If you stick around, I promise you will learn things and you might even find a band or a musical project that you love.

I will make this note here and now though, black metal has a lot of anti-Christian, Satanic themes and I am not going to shy away from those bands or projects for the sake of anyone here. I believe all these bands have something to offer, a story to tell, a perspective to share. I know a lot of people will not like that so as a compromise, I will be putting content warning labels on the reviews/analysis that deal with these bands.

I hope you are all ready for a journey!

[Taethowen]

In this hectic time, January is 'ages ago' so I think it's appropriate to say so for 'four years.' Oof.

I'm eager to read your thoughts and perspective. The world of musical analysis is one that has always existed on the fringes for me. I was aware of it, but never really looked in to see what it was about. Can't wait!

[Wamba_the_Fool]

Sub'd for "Dungeon Synth"

[Zôrzimril]

fullsupportblob! Super pumped for you to get back to doing something for which you so clearly have great passion, and it's an honor that you'll be sharing your analyses with us here!

[Moriel]

Also looking forward to this very much! I admit I have very little experience reading or writing musical critique formally, and I'm eager to see how this goes, in both content and format

[Drífa]

Look forward to some, Black Sabbath 13!

[The Good Hunter]

Thank you everyone so much for your interest in my crazy little project. I will endeavor not to disappoint. Normally I would respond to each and every one of you individually but for this first time out, I'm just gonna dive in and see where it takes us.

~~~~~~~~~~

Summoning, if you ask any metalhead off the street, is the premiere Tolkien metal band. They are the ones that popularized the term despite having done nothing to ever promote themselves as such. They’ve been going since the early 90s, when the Second Wave of Black Metal hit the airways. Summoning, though, was far from the spotlight. They weren’t followed around by controversy, church burnings, murders, suicides, or bizarre stage activity. They developed in Austria and become one of the founding members of the “Austrian Black Metal Syndicate” a term most black metal fans have never even heard of. If you ask the same metalhead off the street what their favorite Summoning album is, it will not be “Lugburz” I am willing to stake my reputation on that.

Lugburz was Summoning’s first full length release, appearing in 1995 on Napalm Records. This is the first, and only, album that Summoning appears as a trio rather than a duo. For Lugburz, they had a drummer who goes by the pseudonym “Trifixion.” The rest of the band, the lineup recognizable by any fan today, is Silenius and Protector taking care of the guitars, vocals, and synth.

There’s a reason this release will never appear on anyone’s list of favorite Summoning albums: it’s boring. And when I mean boring, I don’t mean bad. By all measures of black metal, this is an amazing album. The guitars are fast and chaotic, the riffs are catchy and melodic, and the vocals are decent. However, if any one of you, being uninitiated into the wild hinterlands that is the black metal scene, were to put on another black metal album from 1991 to 1999, you would be very hard pressed to tell the difference. Lugburz was just another typical black metal release. Even if it was made very well, the production on Summoning albums has always been stellar while the rest of the black metal scene revels in very, very band production, it doesn’t stand out.

The first track, Grey Heavens, gives the listener a taste, just the faintest whiff of what could on the horizon. It’s a brilliant, if short, dungeon synth intro. There are two ways a black metal album will start. Either it will start with something akin to dungeon synth (though that term didn’t come around really until about 2014-15) or it will blast away into tremolo picking, blast beats, and screeching. Having listened to well over 2000 hours of black metal in my life, I can say with absolute certainty, the ones that start with the synthy, pseudo classical intro will be better. That is not to say the album will be good or that an album that doesn’t start off like that will be bad, it’s just a good wat to judge to vision of the artists. Grey Heavens is a damn good intro. It’s light and melodic with lots of aquatic samples added to the final mix, leading me to believe the track was supposed to be Gray Havens but got mislabeled somewhere and once it got it there was not a lot anyone could do. That’s neither here nor there though. The point is Grey Heavens is good. It sets the mood; it readies the listeners expectations.

Then the rest of the album hits and you’re left satisfied but never thrilled. Nothing about Lugburz as an album sets itself apart. It’s kinda just there. If I were given this album today and told it was written, recorded, and released in the last five years I would have called it unimaginative, uninspired, dull, lifeless, and formulaic. I would have said it was well made, but it gives me nothing. When the album is over I don’t feel that rush of excitement, that energy, that feeling of awestruck powerfulness that I want for an album.

The narrative progression, too, is sorely lacking on Lugburz. The titles sound cool and vaguely fantasy and evil but when you stop to look at them and really consider them, they fall apart. They don’t mean anything. Aside from a few Tolkien-esque phrases here and there, there’s nothing on this album that can be considered Tolkien Metal.

So do I recommend this album? For most of you readers, probably not. Black metal is hard to get into and Lugburz isn’t the most interesting album to use to take the plunge. It’s still good, I will recommend it after you’ve listened to some of their later work where they dip heavy into the epic and cavernous soundscapes they’re known for. But for now, I wouldn’t rush out to buy it.

[Zôrzimril]

I really appreciate how you've written this review with your current audience clearly in mind, hehe. Not only did I learn your opinion of the album, but I also learned a whole lot about black metal just by reading. Thank you for the edification!

[Taethowen]

Thank you for this fantastic intro to one of your passions! I will probably go hunt down the Grey Heavens track just out of curiosity at some point.

[Hoglorfen]

Agree 100% with that review, imho Summoning is a band that grows with each new release. Except for Oathbound, which will always be at the top :P

[The Good Hunter]

@San I'm glad! Black metal is a genre that's really, really misunderstood (even by the people that create it) so I'm happy to help others learn about what should be like.
@Sally You should, and I hope you like it. Summoning has some more fantastic ambient/synth tracks that start from there.
@Hoglorfen Another Summoning fan! I agree with everything you said, though Dol Guldur holds a very special place in my heart. Oathbound represents them at the peak of their creativity.

And now, without further ado... Minas Morgul

Sophomore albums can fall into two categories. They can either the album that a band finds their stride with, their sound if you will, or they can be a muddled mess of half formed ideas that the band can’t decide on. For Summoning, the second album was either going to set them apart from the massive amounts of the hum drum of black metal being created from a cookie cutter lay out or it was going to forever mire them in mediocrity and relegate them to a footnote. Lugburz was a fine album, but fine is not what Summoning wanted. They wanted to be set apart from the rest of their colleges. Would Minas Morgul be that album for them? Minas Morgul recently celebrated it’s 25th anniversary, which adds a layer of complexity to the review.

Does Minas Morgul succeed? The answer is complicated, unfortunately. That wasn’t a set up for a question that was going to go unanswered. Minas Morgul is like an awkward teenager. It’s halfway between being a child and an adult but doesn’t belong in either category. It’s a gangly mess of arms and legs that has tons of potential but can’t quite get out of its own way. For this release, they dropped their drummer, becoming the two piece they have remained for the last 25 years. From Minas Morgul onward, Silenus and Protector used programmed drums, specifically tom toms and kettle drums, to compliment their sound. This alone is one of the big things that separates and distinguishes Summoning as a band. Being a studio only band (they don’t and never will perform live) this allowed the two to expand their repertoire of instruments and experimentation. Unfortunately for Minas Morgul, there’s a little too much experimentation going on. Silenus and Protector use a lot of synth in this album. A lot of synth. It’s a proto dungeon synth album one could almost say. In 1995 the melding of keyboards with guitars, bass, and drum hadn’t really been achieved. Minas Morgul was a step in that direction, a bold and brave attempt, but in many ways it didn’t so much blend them as mush them together and wrap the whole thing in glue. Sometimes the synth is heavy within the song, dominating everything else, other times it creates a barely noticeable melody. To borrow from some experiences I’ve had with baking to make a metaphor, Summoning used too much flour in one song, then too much sugar, then not enough, then forgot the baking soda.

That being said, despite the flaws of Minas Morgul, this is a fantastic album. It is a marked improvement over Lugburz in both style and substance. With Minas Morgul, they ceased to be another run of the mill black metal band pumping out the same crap for the next twenty years (believe me, there are still bands trying to recreate the bad, lo-fi sounds of the Norwegian Black Metal scene and it’s so annoying). They began forging their own path. Indeed, the sounds that were born on Minas Morgul forged a pathway to a new subgenre within the genre: Atmospheric Black Metal. The sounds of atmospheric black metal are much more refined than the parent genre, richer and more vibrant. I believe in my previous incarnation of Resounding Footsteps I used the word cavernous over and over again to describe the sound. It’s lush, but raw; it has an echoing feeling that gives the listener a feeling of being surrounded.

Narratively speaking, the album is still all over the place. No matter where I look, I can’t really find a thread that leads from one song to the next. From what I can tell, this will be a thing with Summoning up and through their latest album, With Doom We Come. Everything is a mishmash of Tolkien references and cool medieval tropes. Not that any of that is bad, mind you. Summoning also use a lot more instrumental tracks on Minas Morgul than they do on any of their other albums, interspaced very strategically between the longer tracks (one tracks clocks in a ten minutes and another at nine) to give the listener some breathing room to digest the music. Yes, I said digest. Summoning can be a lot to take in, owing to the scope of the sounds they create so a multitude of instrumental tracks work.

There’s certainly no requirement for an album to have a narrative flow but it is something I look for in my music. Music, to me, is meant to take me out of my current world and place in another. Even if that world is exactly the same as the old one but with the edges sharpened, the aggressive tone ramped up, it’s still something different. Music is as much a transport as it is an enhancement. Doing one or the other is good, doing both is transcendent. Minas Morgul is a great listening experience.

One I highly recommend. You will be able to see the seeds planted that become mighty oaks twenty-five years down the line. The standout tracks on the album are the first two. The opening track, Soul Wandering, is a brilliant progression from Grey Heavens. It’s not just an old school synth track with some water added for atmosphere. It’s a synthetic orchestra of sound. It gets a little bombastic at the end but still fantastic, a great indicator of things to come. Lugburz, the next track (confusingly not on the album of the same name) is a surprisingly short seven minutes filled with layered melodies, and disparate instruments all working together. Going back to the cookie analogy, this is the perfect cookie, the flour, the sugar, the baking soda, it’s all here. This is what Summoning is capable of, this is the sound they need to be build on. Will they? Find out when I take a look at their next: Dol Guldur.

[Taethowen]

I love your baking metaphors here. (However, I do believe in your first paragraph you probably want the word colleagues, not colleges, correct?)

I will confess that I rarely sit down and listen to any album from start to finish so I hardly notice if there is a narrative or transition woven through from song to song, but I'm enjoying your perspective on these from both the aspects of the individual albums, and for the band's evolution over time as a whole.

I wholeheartedly agree with music needing to be a transport, though. When I'm searching for songs to include on my writing playlists, it's almost always about whether it helps me enter the world I'm writing for at the time, regardless of genre or style of music.

[The Good Hunter]

I’m going to interrupt my ongoing series on Summoning albums (I know I need to get back to that soon) to talk about something that’s happened in the metal world. I hesitate to talk about it here because I don’t want to use this thread as a blog where I talk about things unrelated to art and Tolkien or what have you and if the news weren’t so gut wrenching (to me at least) I would be content to write something on Twitter about it. However, I can’t. I have to unleash my feeling somewhere and Twitter is so clunky it would take away the impact I was hoping to make by saying it. Enough preamble though. Alexi “Wildchild” Laiho has died. Who is he and why is his passing so devastating to me? I’ll tell you.

Alexi was the founder, singer, and lead guitarist of a band called Children of Bodom (named after a famous murder scene in Finland). His style was a mix of black metal, power metal, thrash, heavy metal, classical, or anything else that suited his fancy at the time. To say that he was one of the best guitarists in the world of metal (arguably in the world of rock as a whole) is not an exaggeration. He was one of the most eclectic, versatile, and inventive musicians I’ve heard in a decade and a half of mainlining extreme music. His career with Children of Bodom started in 1997 and continued until 2019 when the band finally decided to hang up the drumsticks. During that time they put out 10 full length albums, and impressive feat. What was more impressive was that each album was unique and distinct but never strayed from the Children of Bodom sound that Alexi cultivated. Also during that time, the band managed to strange, off the wall things like this that shouldn't work, and don’t really, but were enormously entertaining.

What does this have to do with why I’m writing this today though? I first started listening to Children of Bodom when I was 18. In fact, Something Wild, their first album, was the first album I bought when I turned 18 and I could buy whatever the hell I wanted. I am a dour, serious person (to the surprise of many of you I’m sure) and the music I listen to has gone a long way to inform my personality. So, in a sea of ultra serious black metal bands, Children of Bodom stood out as an oddity. Children of Bodom were fun. They were irreverent, and they were all over the place. But they were talented. Naturally, I’m listening to them now as I write this and the music still holds up. It’s creative, fun, and energetic. Calling Alexi one of my early heroes would not be inaccurate.

Art in any form influences us and that influence can seep through in a hundred different ways. I believe that Alexi and Children of Bodom made it okay for me to use my writing talents to be silly every now and then. I think there’s a direct line from Children of Bodom to Jorgy and Fleeg who thrive here on the Plaza.

Alexi was just 41 years old, I’m 32.

He isn’t my greatest musical influence, but he is one of my firsts. I didn’t always follow Children of Bodom religiously but it was music I could always through and be entertained. Heck, they were the only music DVD I owed for a very long time. I actually hate the idea of concerts (introverted and agoraphobic) but I could put on that DVD and get the full, bombastic, entertaining performance they put on.

I was devastated when I heard the news, even now, I’m trying to hold it together. Alexi was a once in a generation talent. The world of metal, and music as a whole, is less today. I am going to miss him.

Thank you allowing me to try and process my grief.

[Zôrzimril]

Art in any form influences us and that influence can seep through in a hundred different ways.

This was a beautiful tribute. It's clear he had an incredible impact on you - and I'm sure the same is true for many others. Thank you for sharing with us what Alexi's music means to you - as you said above, art impacts us in a myriad of ways, so I think this was the perfect spot for you to post this. <3

[The Good Hunter]

The Whiteness of Spotify

I'm going to interrupt the irregularly scheduled music analysis to bring about something I've noticed in the last few days about Spotify and its recommendation algorithm. For the last few days I've been trying to curate a couple of playlists for some of my characters here on the Plaza: Harnril and the Ryu Twins.

Harnril's playlist consists of Middle-Eastern influences from black metal bands like Melechesh and From the Vastlands and dark ambient soundscapes from Iranian artists (there is a huge underground scene in Tehran that I hope to get to talk about at some point but that neither here nor there) like Saint Abdullah, Alphaxone, and Xerxes the Dark. When I was about a third of the way through creating the playlist I took a look at Spotify's suggestions just to see what sort of music I could use to accompany what I'd already created. I was disappointed, but not shocked, to see all the suggestions were Western European metal bands and Nordic folk music. There is, of course, nothing wrong with those kind of bands and that kind of music. I am a pagan and Nordic folk music like Wardruna, Nytt Land, Danheim, and Forndom are very close to me. However, what on Sauron's black earth were they doing in a recommendation list with nothing but Middle-Eastern music? I decided to run an experiment. How many duduk tracks (a fantastic Armenian folk instrument everyone should be familiar with) would I need to add to the playlist before A) other duduk tracks were suggested and B) there were no more Western European suggestions. The answer to both questions was 8. 8 straight duduk tracks from 8 different albums and 8 different artists. Why did I need to add that many to erase the whiteness trying to encroach on Middle-Eastern culture?

Something very similar happened with the Ryu Twins. The characters are inspired by Korean culture so I wanted as much of that music in their playlist to represent who they were. Sadly, there isn't a lot of Korean black metal out there. In fact, there's not a lot of "Far East" black metal in the world. Zuriaake, Black Kirin, and Deep Mountains are the biggest names in that area. So I added two or three tracks from each of them, breaking my rule of "one artist per playlist until the playlist takes off". One of the biggest, and my favorite, Chinese black metal bands, Holyarrow (or 御矢 more accurately), isn't on Spotify and none of the music related to them is there either which is a major blow to the scene. Now I don't know why that is so I won't be condemning or congratulating, all I know about the situation is that it sucks. I added several Korean, Japanese, and Chinese folk tracks to the list to fill out the spaces and make sure it's not all just black metal. I only did that much because Spotify is terrible about having curated lists of folk music of any substantial length from this area of the world. So when I had about 12 tracks, I looked at the suggestions. What do you think I found waiting for me? Nordic folk and Western European black metal bands. Insert *pretends to be shocked GIF*. I finished the list on my own, using resources like Metal Archives and List.fm to find metal, folk, and ambient tracks to fill out the rest of the playlist. I didn't have the energy to experiment with playlist to see how long it would take to fix the recommendations. I shouldn't fredegar have to.

Non western music is ignored, suppressed, and erased by the likes of Spotify and it's creators. Sure, it will allow them on there, but there is no way in Hell it's going to promote or suggest them. I found the music I did because I knew certain bands and certain projects existed because I've spend years combing through music all over the world to find new styles, new artists, and new musical innovation. If I didn't have that background, I would have never had an idea where to begin. Layman music fans aren't going to know who From the Vastlands is, they aren't going to be fans of Djivan Gasparyan or Chthonic or Reza Solatipour. How are we going to learn and grown and expand as a species if we suppress so much of who we are? It's been awhile since I read it and I don't have the book in front of me for quotes, but "Algorithms of Oppression" goes into detail about how technology is being used to spread whiteness and normalize cultural appropriation. Tech is limited by the closemindedness of its creators. Unless we start saying "NO MORE" to stuff like this, it will never get any better.

[The Good Hunter]

Medieval black metal. It’s a misnomer, misused and misunderstood throughout the black metal community. What it should mean is black metal that utilizes not only the themes and atmospheres from the medieval period by the music itself as well. It should be translating the music, literature, and art of a thousand years ago into a form that is new and fresh and vibrant, despite so much content likely created around the Black Plague. Sadly, that’s not really what it is. At least not that I’ve seen. The metal community is vast and there are even corners that I have yet to explore. Medieval black metal does involve some themes, both religious and secular, from the period but often that’s not what makes an album or a band “medieval black metal”. A dark theme, a somewhat lo-fi quality, and a reverb turned up to eleven is really all it takes. Now all of this not to say some of the work with the medieval black metal label is inherently bad or boring or poorly conceived. Case in point: Dol Guldur, Summoning’s third full length album. Released by Napalm Records in January 1997, Dol Guldur stands as Summoning’s most commercially successful album. Once you listen to it a few times, it’s easy to see why. Full disclosure here, Dol Guldur is my favorite album by Summoning, in fact it’s one of my top ten albums of all time. I will “try” to be objective but be warned I am more than likely going to gush over this beast.

Dol Guldur sets a precedent for Summoning, conceptually and performatively: eight tracks, between eight and twelve minutes long, with a beautiful synth piece set at the beginning. They would follow this formula almost exactly until the most recent “With Doom We Come”. In the halcyon days of 1997, we had no idea who Peter Jackson was, we knew nothing of motion capture, and the idea of filming three epic length movies at once was not even a day dream of the craziest conspiracy theorist, in 1997 we were give Dol Guldur, an album of raw and angry black metal often juxtaposed again hauntingly beautiful synth pieces. Point and counterpoint. While Dol Guldur is raw and the production is what it began in the later years of the band’s discography (I challenge you to find a black metal album with top notch production in the mid-90s, go on I dare you), the production itself lends to the overall atmosphere, it adds a layer of storytelling, of authenticity, of immersion. Am I reaching? Maybe a little, there are times, especially on Kôr, where the production and the musical intention of the song clash. The song in question is about Eldamar and thus tried to be light, mysterious, and ethereal but the production added a layer of grime and rawness that didn’t make the song as effective as it could, and should, have been. However, that same production is on full display on Nightshade Forest, a song about… well Mirkwood, and the grime, rawness, and uneasiness add a layer to the experience. It’s not just about the music, it’s the feeling that music creates and how it stays with you. Lo-fi production in that moment was utterly perfect, creating one of the best songs you will ever hear in my not humble whatsoever opinion. This is also the first album in which Tolkien himself is credited with lyrics. In fact I’d say a good 75% of them are pulled directly from Lord of the Rings and adapted and mixed with some other very epic fantasy lyrics to become fully realized songs in the black metal sense (sadly there is no “tra-la-la-lally” anywhere present). Overall the repetitive riffs, motifs, and themes throughout the album gives it a very epic poetry feel. Tolkien would have no doubt hated it, as he would hate 99% of everything we do here, but I think he would have to admit that Summoning knows how to create a truly unique interpretation of his work and present it in a way that, while it would be noxious and seizure inducing to the professor, has a feel of the ancient sagas and Homeric poems.

Dol Guldur is a gem, one that gets overlooked as time goes on, as music becomes more and more processed and mechanical (ironic given that more than half of the album itself is synth of programmed instruments). Dol Guldur is, in my opinion, the first album that can be truly called “Tolkien Metal”. Everything else created from then to now is an imitation, a reaction, or a facsimile of it. This is the prize, this is the infinity stone, this is the One Ring.

[The Good Hunter]

Taking a (another) break from the long slow plodding march through Summoning’s backlog (next up is the fantastic EP Nightshade Forests), I decided to something fun. Well, it might not actually be fun. For the poor reader(s) of this thread it might be the most pointless, excruciating, and mind-numbing thing in the universe. I’m going to give you all the subgenres of black metal, or maybe I should call them sub-subgenres of black metal with a brief explanation of the sound and how it differs from all the other sub-subgenres with an example or two of what that sound is supposed to entail. Will anyone but me understand? I hope not, but I am prepared for a lot of confused looks on the face(s) of anyone trying to make sense of this.

Black metal is a style of music that lends itself to extreme categorization. A lot of artists try to fight it and say things like “we’re just black metal man, no need to get into the nitty gritty.” But I love the nitty gritty, especially when it comes to black metal. I love all the categorization and compartmentalizing. In my opinion it helps listeners make sense of all the varied sounds that black metal can throw at people. Believe it or not, musically, lyrically, and geographically black metal is one of the most diverse forms of music today. Like jazz, its adherents love to pick apart and identify the sounds and draw lines between the musicology and historiography of the music. So, without further ado….


Black Metal: the term was coined by the UK heavy metal Venom for their 1982 album, “Black Metal” the sound of the album was not anything like what we might consider black metal today, but it is a foundational album. Along with bands like Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, and Bathory, they formed what is known as the first wave. The second wave, and the one that is more recognizably black metal, was started in the late 80s, early 90s in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Bands like Mayhem, Satyricon, Immortal, Burzum, and Darkthrone helped define the sound: very fast with thin production, tremolo picking, and vocals in a much higher range than those of their predecessors. Vocals are often described as screeches, screams, or hissing rather than growls or croaks (yes this is all very real ways of describing vocals, I’ve done it myself). At some point I promise to give you all a more thorough history of the genre.
True Norwegian Black Metal: another term applied to the bands of the second wave but specific to Norway. Mayhem, Darkthrone, Immortal and the like.
Finnish Black Metal: black metal from Finland, often characterized as melodic but with very dirty production. Bands like Sargiest, Horna, and Azaghal are prime examples of this kind of sound (you should also recognize a few of those names as names of orcs I use).
Swedish Black Metal: black metal, but from Sweden! Okay, it’s not quite that simple. A lot of Swedish metal focuses on the melody of the music before the intensity and thus is often called Swedish Melodic Black Metal, but that’s a bloody mouthful. Bands like Marduk, Dissection, Naglfar, and Watain are good examples of this sound.
Ambient Black Metal: All the trappings of black metal, but injected with an underlying (or overlying in some cases) of dark ambient music, sounds that are amusical or amelodic are added and intertwined with the music to give added depth that bad production doesn’t give. Examples are Leviathan, the US supergroup known as Twilight, and early Nachtmystium
Atmospheric Black Metal: personally, this is my favorite sub-subgenre so bear with him (ba dum tsk). Atmospheric black metal is categorized by what can only be called a cavernous sound, an echoing sound that gives much more depth than ambient underlyings. Often, but not always, the music is slower and the vocals are less prominent. The sound usually comes from decent production (something unheard of in early black metal) and a particular image in mind. Examples are Wolves in the Throne Room, Agalloch, 1349, Zuriaake, and our golden boys Summoning
Blackened Death Metal: probably the most popular form of black metal overall, it combines elements of death metal and black metal in easier to digest versions of both. Often the satanic or esoteric themes of black metal are incorporated into death metal with a wider range of vocals used. Examples are Behemoth, Dissection, Akercocke, and Necrophobic.
Black-Doom: like blackened death metal, black-doom is a combination of black metal and doom metal, incorporating the satanic imagery into slower, more plodding riffs and altogether more depressive atmosphere of doom metal. Examples are early Katatonia, early Tiamat, and Nortt
Depressive Suicidal Black Metal: I hate the name of the genre, it implies something about the music that really isn’t there but it’s all about showmanship in black metal, with the satanic imagery and all. DSBM is similar to black-doom, but remove the doom sound. Prime examples are Shining, Leviathan, and Xasthur.
Black’n’Roll: what do you get when you mix the harshness of black metal with the attitude of classic rock? Black’n’roll baby, black’n’roll. It’s a small subgenre, but it’s a fun one. Examples are late era Satyricon, Chrome Division, and I
Blackgaze: combine the imagery of atmospheric black metal with the technical complicatedness of shoegaze, and you get one of the more recent developments in black metal: blackgaze. To be honest, I’m not as familiar with the genre as I’d like, but there some pretty good examples out there, like Alcest, Fen, Blut Aus Nord
Occult Black Metal: this is a purely lyrical distinction, but the lyrics are often more in line with the occult and magickal rituals rather than “raaah, Satan, raaah”. Examples include Deathspell Omega, Dødsengel, and Mephorash
Viking Metal: another personal favorite, Viking metal is exactly what it sounds like, black metal with Vikings in it. There are a lot of distinguishing bits and arguments about what is considered Viking metal by the community which I might get into at a later date, but for now, I think you know what I mean. Examples are Enslaved, late Bathory, and Einherjar.
Pagan Black Metal: a kissing cousin of Viking metal, pagan black metal is essentially a wider version of Viking metal by virtue of its embracing of more than just Nordic thematic backgrounds. However, an issue with this genre is that it can sometimes lead down the road to romantic nationalism and from there, bad things can happen. Examples include Celtachor, Finntroll, and Forefather
Blackened Thrash: there’s not a lot of these bands out there, and it’s sad because the sound produced by Melechesh is amazing. It’s bombastic, fun, and kinetic, combining black metal with thrash. Examples would be Melechesh and very early Slayer
Blackened Power Metal: this is a fun genre, even if there's only one band that really fits the description. Power metal is the aggressive version of rock and roll, what happens when it gets close to black metal? Númenor happens.
Progressive Black Metal: What do you get if you add keyboards to black metal? You either get melodic black metal (with the keyboard providing a roadmap for the rest of the music to follow), or you get progressive black metal (which incorporates the keyboards rather than follow them). Examples are Enslaved, Emperor, and Borknagar
Gothic Black Metal: often maligned for being too mainstream, gothic black metal treads the line between literature and metal with lots and lots of influences from the aesthetics of gothic horror literature. The best example, and only one really needed here, is Cradle of Filth
Cascadian Black Metal: a geographic categorization, Cascadian black metal originates from the Cascadian Mountain Range and the surrounding areas like Washington and Oregon. Often, these bands are also categorized as atmospheric black metal with lots of nature and pagan themes and even called “Ecological Black Metal” which I find particularly amusing. Examples include Wolves in the Throne Room, Panopticon, and Agalloch.
Tolkien Metal: I mean, come one, do I need to explain this one to you guys? Tolkien is the biggest influence on black metal outside the devil and at least we know Tolkien is real. There are several Tolkien inspired bands out there like Blind Guardian and Battlelore, but Tolkien metal is, at least to this purist, only black metal. In addition to a lot of Tolkien inspired lyrics, there literally hundreds of Tolkien inspired names, but that’s a discussion for another forum here. Examples include Summoning (duh), Emyn Muil, Ered Wethrin, and Moongates Guardian
Epic Black Metal: imagine if Atmospheric Black metal mixed with the vivacious attitude of Viking metal and throw in some fantasy genre love, that’s how you get epic black metal. Examples are Summoning (again), Caladan Brood, and Sojourner
Hellenic Black Metal: another geographic signifier, this time from Greece, prime example being Rotting Christ
Cosmic Black Metal: black metal IN SPAAAAAACE, that’s really all I need to say about that one, other than I’m a huge fan of it. Midnight Odyssey, Alrakis, and Mare Cognitum
Post-Black Metal: a rather nebulous term for black metal that usually encompasses everything from atmospheric black metal to blackgaze and progressive black metal, usually examples are Saor, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Alcest
Unblack Metal: also known derisively as white metal, unblack metal is the attempted Christian response to black metal, using the aesthetics of black metal but removing all dark imagery in favor of Christian themes and motifs
NSBM: I hate this genre, everyone should. In short, it’s nazi black metal and it’s terrible, prioritizing message over music. I’ve listened to some in the past and aside from the abhorrent message, the music itself is so poor it makes one’s ears bleed. Burzum and Absurd are prime examples, stay away from them
RABM: the mirror image of NSBM, and equally problematic at times, Red/Anarchist Black Metal focuses on socialist and communistic themes. It’s a little better than NSBM, especially when not solely focusing on message, but if you aren’t left leaning in your politics it’s not going to be for you. Examples are Panopticon, Skagos, and Feminazgul

Don’t get me wrong, there are so, so, so many more subgenres, but do you really want an explanation of “Progressive Blackened Death Metal” or “Medieval Black Metal” or “Atmospheric Pagan War Metal”? I mean, if you do, I will happily add a part two to this. More likely though, I’ve killed you all with boredom, weird names, and terms meaningless outside of music lovers.

So what say you?

[The Good Hunter]

Recently, I wrote up a proposal to give a lecture on the origins and history of dungeon synth, that wonderfully obscure and niche genre that only a few thousand people around the world have ever even heard of. Technically I'm not supposed to teach at my job with OLLI but the director actually seemed somewhat game for my lecture so I might actually get to do this.

That means, of course, that I'm going to need to brush up on my analysis skills. And I need to decide which projects I can add to the lecture, I only have 75 minutes after all.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Frost: I had no idea this thread existed. You have done a remarkable job with more than 2000 hours listening and reviewing music. I did read earlier through the whole thread, and your analysis post over different genres was really enlightening over the branches of metal music scene. I do recognise Viking Metal, and the Pagan version of it, Tolkien and Epic. Or metal music combined with a philharmonic score. I have quite a diversity of that sort of music. A good Norwegian singer I like the voice of is Einar Selvik.

[The Good Hunter]

Why thank you Aik! I must admit, I don't know if it's the future librarian in me that loves categorizing and systematizing so much or if I'm just weird like that, but being able to point to distinct (and minute) differences between styles of music and fitting them into a large puzzle fills me with absolute joy. Of all the sub-sub-genres of black metal, I think Tolkien Metal is my favorite. There are obvious reasons for this of course, but I think it goes deeper than just "because it's Tolkien" and goes more into my theories about adaptation and how that reflects back on the original work. Tolkien Metal is rough and bombastic and sinister, like all black metal, but all of that is tightly focused through a Tolkien lens. I think if one were to read my writing, especially my writing on the Plaza, the link is not difficult to see.

On another note, I got unofficial word today that my proposal has been accepted and I'll be teaching that lecture in the Spring Semester! Now comes the somewhat inglorious task of selecting which albums and artists to talk about and how to relate them to the topic and to the audience. I think what I will do here is suggest an album (Tolkien related naturally) and do a review on it, get feedback from anyone who dares engage with me (mwahahaha), and see if that will fit into my lesson plan.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Frost: Indeed it is not hard to recognise your RP style. Everyone has an unique signature, me too. Great you have green and good choice of subject. Choose something you are comfortable with and know your grounds well. Good luck with the preparation!

[Moriel]

On another note, I got unofficial word today that my proposal has been accepted and I'll be teaching that lecture in the Spring Semester!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

[The Good Hunter]

Thank you both! I'm both eager and terrified of the work ahead of me. It's time to reopen apart of me that I thought lost and unrecoverable. I might even crack the Facebook open to see if my old contacts are still doing their keyboard nonsense (much akin to my own style of keyboard nonsense).

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Frost: Crack open FB, that sounds pretty interesting on your side. What kind of keyboard tones will emerge from there? Dark? Light? Something else? I hope the preparations for lecture on the dungeon synth are going well?

[The Good Hunter]

The preparations are going well, Aik, thank you! I recently discovered a YouTube channel with a very special nano genre of dungeon synth: Comfy Synth which appears to take quite a lot of inspiration musically and aesthetically from the Hobbits in Tolkien rather than the epic scope of Middle-earth's history the way most dungeon synth does. It's like and fluffy almost. Apparently too, and I need to look more into it before I actually give the history, it has a bit of controversy over its creation.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Frost: I accessed the link you gave.

1. The album of Shire Oak doesn't really speak to me. I can't feel or hear a tale in it.
2. I came across Fallen Kingdom and that is very beautiful. I read the Critics essay of Tolkien on it.
3. And I am listening to Ungodly Mysteries, but I don't yet what to think of it. The soundcapture is intricate.
4. I have this one too, Compendium of Frost, I found it quite beautiful.

I'll edit this post when I find more.

[The Good Hunter]

Retrospective on My Dungeon Synth Introduction

My first lecture, my first real lecture at any rate, for OLLI went better than I was anticipating. Fifteen people signed up for the class and ten showed up, for an OLLI course, that’s about on par for how attendance works, I should know I was the one that did the detailed attendance analysis for them for a year. For a brand new instructor, those are pretty decent numbers. I will admit that being the former administrative assistant (aka the guy everyone ran to when something didn’t work the way it was supposed to) might have had something to do with that. Anyway, that aside the class itself went better than I expected. I knew I was going to have to do it over a Zoom call because of my move and I was going to have to deliver this class not even a week after moving across the state. I was pretty nervous. I had all my music cued up, my PowerPoint presentation ready, and a decent pair of headphones that would allow me to hear the music better.
First thing that went wonky was, of course, the headphones. No one could hear me despite the volume being turned up and the microphone turned on, off, then on again. Welp, never fear, I’ll forgo the headphones and flood the new apartment with dungeon synth. That can’t be a bad thing, right?
I started by giving some barebones definitions of what dungeon synth was, where it came from, the first few musicians that started dabbling in it (none of which I will go into here because this isn’t the lecture and if you want to know that stuff we can get into it later). Once I mentioned dungeon synth’s connection to Dungeons and Dragons and roleplaying games people started to engage with me. I was surprised, the crowd I was speaking to was literally all older white ladies in El Paso. Still, that got the ball rolling, they understood the kind of music I was going to be talking about because they all had some sort of tenuous connection to its origins. I mentioned Tolkien being perhaps the biggest influences on the genre and that got quite a few people excited too.
I started off with a Voormithadreth song. This project is my favorite outright and is a perfect example of the fundamentals of dungeon synth. We only listened to about half the song because it was a long one, about fifteen minutes and the lecture itself was only 75 so we had a lot of ground to cover. I might have been the only one that really like this one because once we stopped the music to discuss it there weren’t many people clambering over each other to speak.
Next I went with Hole Dweller, an example of dungeon synth mixed with prog rock. They seemed to like this one a lot more. They asked all sorts of questions about the instruments and how synth artists create the soundscapes.
Next was Argonath, a project I am very, very familiar with as it was created by a friend of mine in Ireland. They really got into this one, I had to stop them from getting too deep into it because I had a schedule to keep!
After Argonath, I played another Irish dungeon synth project: Deathbard and told them to specifically listen to the kinds of sound being utilized for the album. Again, they really like it and when I revealed that the entire album was created using the captured sounds of children’s toys and the story behind the album’s concept, the eleven ladies (there’s always a few stragglers in OLLI showing up halfway through a class or lecture) sounded genuinely interested. The conversation turned again toward the kinds of sound that dungeon synth can employ to create music. Children’s toys included.
After that was Sysyphus a project with one album and no biographical information to speak of. From here I was able to talk about dungeon synth’s secretive nature and its aversion to any sort of limelight. The contradiction between my writing about the genre and spreading its influence and a site like bandcamp writing was an amusing point. I’m a special case, one of the ladies said. Anyway, we also talked about the monetary aspect of a genre like dungeon synth and the laughable disexistance of it. Aside from a few labels here and there, there is no one out there promote dungeon synth. The same couple hundred people interested in the genre will be the albums, then make their own, then buy more, then make their own and you see where that is going. Dungeon synth is for the treasure hunters, it’s for those plagued with ideas that don’t care how or even if people find their work.
Next up was Nan Morlith, another Irish project (there’s a lot of good synth in Ireland, black metal too but that’s for another entirely different book) that I was personally close to. I got to brag here, telling the ladies that I was a beta listener for the album several months before it was released. It’s cool to be part of the in-crowd, even if that in-crowd is like five people.
Tales Under the Oak was next after this, once the music finished I talked more about my personal history with dungeon synth and with Dark Age Productions, the label that produced this album. I was a copy writer for them, being paid gloriously in physical cassettes, all of which I still have nearly a decade later. More humble brag here, even if no one else in the universe sees it that way.
I was nearly running out of time by now. I was 70 minutes into a 75 minute lecture. I had one more offering to show everyone: Morrowdim, a dungeon synth project in our own backyard, quite literally in El Paso. Dungeon synth is everywhere, you just have to know where to look for it.
There were so many other albums and projects I wanted to talk about, so many ideas I had that I couldn’t use in the end. I would have loved to do an entire course on dungeon synth, but even then I would have run out of time. The deadline for fall proposals is coming up very soon. I think I’m going to do another lecture on dungeon synth that builds off this one. I might even get twelve people to show up next time!

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Frost: You detailed analysis of your Zoom meeting was very interesting to read, and also what your viewers liked and what not. Next time you can adjust a little, but each time it is surprise. I had myself a recent online Zoom class in art, but it failed miserably, because I couldn't hear a thing and ask nobody how to get sound over Zoom. My computer doesn't like the platform. It got something to do with permissions and I am not really at home with Zoom. I cannot figure out what went wrong? Anyhow I am glad yours was a succes of 45 minutes!