Thangorodrim - Gil-Estel REVIEW

Obscurity, in the current year, has become a hot commodity. Gone are the tape-trading days of the pre-internet epoch, where word-of-mouth, label flyers, and the occasional zine were the only connection one had to the shadowy, reclusive underground of the music scene. In its place, for better or for worse, is the ability to expose oneself to most of the music anyone has ever created. If you have an 8-track and an acoustic guitar, the abyss known as Bandcamp will allocate you your own bit of abyss to host your music. During the summer of 2013, I singlehandedly acquainted myself with black metal using nothing but YouTube album streams and Metal Archives. Two years later, equipped with a handful of recommendations and handmade charts, I did the same for shoegaze and neofolk. With the right curiosity, the limiting factor in discovering new music is one's own time.

This ease of access to music has fomented its own issues, which I'm not going to delve into in this post, because that runs the dangerous risk of turning into a rant. But, even as the internet has cast a light into the darkest corners of the underground, there have been recesses of it that have largely resisted the cloying light, remaining hidden and obscure even as the mainstream remained merely a handful of well-placed clicks away. And the tenacity of those corners to remain obscure has made them all the more appealing. Perhaps the crown jewel of those forever-outsiders is dungeon synth.

The name might sound goofy, but the genre has been around for at least twenty years - arguably longer, with some devotees citing Tangerine Dream's soundtrack for 'the Keep', released in 1984, as the first example of what would become dungeon synth. Nevertheless, the genre experienced its aesthetic 'birth' at roughly the same time as black metal roared into existence. Burzum's seminal compositions 'Den Onde Kysten' and 'Han Som Reiste' (off Det Som Engang Var) are considered the founding moments of the genre. Later refinements would come from Austrian band Summoning, Norwegian project Mortiis, and German act Depressive Silence, among others, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Dungeon synth is characterized by its aesthetic - namely, the monochrome of black metal with a decidedly medieval twist - and instrumentation. The latter features long, droning, minimalist synth lines that channel its fraternal twin black metal's fixation on generating vast soundscapes, oftentimes reminiscent of 90s role-playing games. Arizona's Thangorodrim, a modern project that incorporates elements of dark ambient into its expansive, Tolkien-themed work, have risen to prominence as one of the pre-eminent modern dungeon synth projects in recent years. Last year's Taur-Nu-Fuin, an epic, four-song foray into the sinister depths of Mordor, assisted by yawning, imperceptible vocals, was my first exposure to the project, which, in the absence of any social media presence, dropped its newest album Gil-Estel earlier last month. In true underground fashion, I was only alerted to this release by a poster on a music forum, which I would be lying if I said didn't add to the appeal of unearthing and listening to Gil-Estel.

Gil-Estel picks up where Taur-Nu-Fuin left off - anthemic, sprawling, chilling, sinister dungeon synth lacking in the neoclassical flourishes of other pioneers. Thangorodrim favors long, orchestral pieces that build on themselves to an epic sword 'n sorcery climax that channels the foggy forests and ancient crags of Tolkien's fantastic world, with sensible, slow melodies that are at once haunting and expansive.

Thangorodrim's strength lies in this long-form songwriting, wherein the ideas develop slowly over more than ten minutes. By contrast, Chaucerian Myth's monolithic, nearly four-hour dungeon synth interpretation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which flirts with neoclassical instrumentation to channel the medieval aesthetic of the genre, often falls flat, and transcends the narrow line between endearing and excessive cheese. With a genre as atmospheric as dungeon synth, subtlety is king, and this is where Gil-Estel reigns supreme - the music is patient, pensive, sublimely simple, yet equally nostalgic and epic, melding the minimalism of dark ambient with the emotional and instrumental maximalism of the heavy metal subgenre that spawned its style.

You can stream Gil-Estel here.   

New Music Wednesdays - Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Perturbator, and Street Sects

Welcome back ladies and germs, to a new segment I've decided to call New Music Wednesdays, wherein we try our best to get through Hump Day with some new tunes worth checking out!

This week has seen new music premiere from old fixtures and scrappy newcomers alike - Canadian post-rock mainstays Godspeed You! Black Emperor, French synthwave titan Perturbator, and Texas industrial lunatics Street Sects.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (henceforth 'Godspeed') require no introduction. The collective singlehandedly defined post-rock's controversial "second wave" in the late 90s and early 2000s with a handful of seminal masterpieces, only to reemerge in the early 2010s with a decidedly more experimental, drone-tinted output. The third LP of this incarnation of the band, Luciferian Towers, is slated to be released in late September on Montreal's Constellation Records (you can preorder the record here) and made waves with its politically-charged press release which included, among other statements, a blanket ban on the album's export to Israel. Nevertheless, Godspeed have released two singles from the album - 'Undoing A Luciferian Towers'[sic]', the introductory track, which premiered over the weekend, and, this morning, the Quietus debuted 'Anthem For No State Pt. III', the LP's closing track. You can stream 'Undoing' on the band's bandcamp here and 'Anthem' on the Quietus here.

Godspeed's music has always been an exercise in length, with long-form tracks flowing between numerous themes, moods, textures, and melodies over their hefty duration. However, 'Undoing' commences Luciferian Towers with five minutes of flitting between ephemeral, heavy atmospherics and uncompromising, cavernous drone, echoing the band's most recent record Asunder, Sweet, and Other Distress. The song builds in tension over its eight-minute duration, exploding into a melodic, guitar-and-violin-driven climax to close out the song. 'Anthem', conversely, sees the band at their most triumphant, with chaotic, turbulent noise transforming almost immediately into the awe-inspiring, sublime beauty that the collective have been purveying for over twenty years. The contrast between both tracks begs the question - what goes on in between? We'll have to wait for the 22nd to find out.

Perturbator, in a bit of a left-turn, are arguably the champions of the synthwave movement, an 80s revivalist cult that channels the decade's artistic cheese and obtuseness into a dark, dystopian, electronic context. Perturbator rose to prominence in 2014 with their Dangerous Days LP, finding a fanbase in both electronic and metal communities alike, and bringing their stylistic niche to the public eye. Since then, the genre has all but exploded as part of a ubiquitous nostalgia for the 80s that's gripped underground music for the past three years. Even Dan Barrett of Have a Nice Life fame has dabbled in it.

With two LPs and a handful of EPs under his belt, Perturbator's newest release New Model sees the synthwave forerunner slowing down, creating a darker, more brooding atmosphere that lacks the bright fluorishes of prior Perturbator outings - though that's not to say New Model doesn't have its fair share of anthemic moments (the drop on 'Tactical Precision Disarray' is absolutely jaw-dropping), but that the EP is less 80s motorcycle chase and more John Carpenter's gnawing dread. The penultimate track, 'Corrupted By Design', which veers between mid-tempo grooves and eerie, atmospheric synth lines, epitomizes this niche. Ultimately, New Model is a departure from Perturbator's previous style and, true to form, nails the aesthetic even as it pushes the genre into new territory.

New Model is out now on Blood Music (digitally). Physical releases will be released October 20th. You can stream the album here.

Lastly, Texas' Street Sects are veritable newborns, with just one album, End Position, released last year on weird rock/metal label the Flenser. The project, which melds blistering industrial beats with sampling and the raw fury of hardcore, are arguably one of the most unique listens in contemporary rock (please prove me wrong and clue me into something similar if I am), and are set to release an EP, Rat Jacket, on October 6th. Similar to Godspeed, after dropping the EP's debut track 'Blacken the Other Eye' a few weeks ago, released 'In Prison, At Least I Had You', a seven-minute (an eternity by Street Sects standards) affair that completely eschewed the duo's signature howled, screeched vocals in lieu of haunting cleans even as the industrial instrumentals rage behind them. With half the EP released, Rat Jacket may surpass the uncompromising, destructive rage of End Position. You can stream 'In Prison, At Least I Had You' here.