Wongraven "Fjelltronen"
Moonfog , 1995
Lord Pale :
Satyr of Satyricon's solo side project of personal themed medieval music . No heavy guitars , just acoustic bass and synth . Satyr plays most of the instruments and does all the vocals but enlists two guest musicians for synths and grand piano ( Ihsahn from Emperor ) and another for drums . The music is epic majestic and medieval , the lyrics are Satyr's personal reflections on dreams , tragedy , beauty and misanthropy . Vocally Satyr sings infrequently instead allowing the music to create vast sweeping sound scapes to envelope the listener . His vocals include his deep traditional voice , low chanting similar to that of Storm or Isengard , or whispered voices . The music can be hard to follow at times , for instance the first track "Det Varen En Gang Et Menneske" ( all the lyrics are in Norwegian ) starts of with a dark atmosphere before changing to some relaxing medieval pipes , before launching into and eerie piece , and finally ending with some dreaming fade out chants , whilst the second track is exclusively a tense foreboding atmospheric piece . The third track is a short happy piece with an appearance by a mouth harp , whilst the forth is a melodic medieval fare track that wouldn't be out of place on a robin hood sound track . So the moods vary frequently on this disc and thus it is a little hard to digest when listening to it all the way through , but individual tracks can be nice when you are in the mood that they represent . I will point out that this cd only ahs five tracks and lasts just over 32 minutes , so I wouldn't recommend it as an essential purchase , but if you like the sound of a classically orientated medieval equivalent of Satyricon's "The Shadowthrone" then you'll find this an interesting purchase .
Favourite Tracks - Over Odemark ; Det Varen En Gang Et Menneske ; Tiden Er En Slenlagt Grav
Mark - 7/10 |
