Artist: Atlantean Sword
Title: Ironmaster
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Forbidden Keep
I think it’s fair to say that I was far from alone in anticipating new work from Atlantean Sword since their debut full length floored so many of us, and here it is. Heralded by that evocative cover art from The Pitforge, I could feel the pump in my muscles readying even before I pressed play… ‘The Ritual Of Steel’ begins.
The harpsichord like sound, a lilting refrain that grabs your attention, the pipe sound which holds your heart ready for…Oh my, that grand swell of horns and the deep resonant percussion. Atlantean Sword have that incredible ability to open up an entire vista in a few bars. Less than two minutes and the cinematic vision, the swooping vision of some great condor perhaps gliding in the updraft and a world of history and high adventure is here. The melody, the soft waves from the great gong, the martial beat of the drum bringing a time of heroes to life and just beautiful layering and arrangement of the synths. Knowing when to soften into a place of soft peace perhaps a memory of what heroes fight to preserve, then building up with a drum like a beating heart.
The Days Of High Adventure are here once more.
‘The Anvil Beneath The Mountain’ is darker, a feel of a hallowed olace wraps around you. The refrain a variation on the opener but more solemn, the rhythm becomes like vast, skilled hammer blows. Metal caught between metal. The rhythm that brings beauty to an edge and magic to a blade. Fires heating even the rock, sweat dripping from thews braced by long years at their craft. The delicate tapping, the sweet melody for the incredible intricacy wrought by strong, thick fingers. Dwarven craft? Imprisoned genius? Both? I see Andre, trapped but content. Choose your own path.
‘Of Blood And Black Flame’ feels like a march, dark and inevitable. Destruction held in check until the chaos runs free. The way the percussion builds the mood here is just mesmerising even as it turns to another variation on the main theme as all film music and game music does. It reminds you of why you came, but keeps you aware that you have travelled and things have changed. The deftness of the quiet moments is beautiful, the subtlety of the background music from whence the melodies rise and join is frankly incredible. And finally we see the flames dance.
‘The Crown From The Iron Skull’ is something from the depths. Moving slowly and hidden in dark, dank depths. The vocal sounds, ominous as the drum, bring a sense of vast age, great power and a loss hidden. It feels like you are approaching it, led by the tale as much as the path. Echoes of iron hammers, maybe an older time, rise. And fall.
‘Forged In Solacesteel’ begins almost like some medieval lament; the harpsichord sound bittersweet and introverted. Personal. A person remembering, regrouping in their heart and mind. And when the horns rise and the imperious drums it is as though the personal becomes the quest, and there is no hiding it. You march in the view of others but the burden is yours. The keyboard turns, the mixing is so emotional I feel like I approach the endgame of some long tale that I have invested so much into. And it doesn’t disappoint. The grand stage, the masterful use of rhythmic changes and the glory of the melody never lets go of hand or heart.
‘A Blade Stained In Blood And Rust’ feels like a memory, an item discarded. The tune is slow, deeply melancholy. Memories and blades both tarnish with time, the vitality of the tale fades, blunts, crumbles as the voices of those who were there fade like threads in a tapestry fraying. But somehow, as the swell begins and rises, the world they changed remembers what it needs. It may not be the truth, but is holds enough of it to have been worth it.
We close with ‘Ironmaster’ itself. The end of the tail, or the heart of it? Once more the sound of the anvil prevails. The drumming picks up pace, the refrain different once more but steeped in memory.
I find myself looking back, wondering if all that has happened are the tales that have sprung from those anvil beats below the mountain, of the blades fashioned and the deeds that they have done. The names of the heroes carved forever, long after their passing, and yet the Ironmaster at the forge lives on, hidden. The beating heart of it all.
Epic, cinematic but so deeply emotional it almost defies belief. This is an absolute masterpiece of dungeon synth and its ability to rouse heroes and tell of the highest adventure in the darkest of places. Heroes sung of, heroes long forgotte; but whatever the iron does as it is told.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 