Artist: Barak Tor
Title: Regal Hymns Of Blood
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Dale Of Shadows
This is actually an old album from this Greek project; 2018 to be precise, but given new life by the esteemed Dale Of Shadows who does so much for dungeon synth both in their homeland and worldwide. I admit I was pulled in so hard when I noticed the song titles on this album. This is heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery from the iron age of barbarians. Robert E. Howard and Kull and…the awesome, nay, legendary Karl Edward Wagnerand two of my favourite ever short fantasy tales.
Could it be… could it live up to those tales? Oh… could it?
We open with ‘Dawn Or The Iron Empire’, the sounds of battle, the image flashing of the indomitable warrior atop an ever growing pile of corpses, axe descending, knife flashing, body scarred by a thousand cuts but still standing…
‘King Of The Thurian Age’ marches to a hard beat; military, steadfast and yet the rich synths stir thoughts or more than simple army discipline. They raise the glow of great hearts seeking adventure, of grim eyes set on destiny itself. You can almost feel the clouds of fate weaving around this dark hearted march. Blades are sharpened as ‘The Whispering Blade And The Lord Of Ruins’ asserts itself. The drums beat further away now. But here preparations are made. Voices rise, a choral sound to usher in the epic. We witness the rise of the Lord. Are they from a distant land, bringing with them the sound of desert tribes? Or simply have passed through those lands. It is a sound of heat for me, of rousing the warriors and of the swirl of silk clad dancers to stir the blood for the march onwards.
‘Thresholds Of An Ancient Sorcery’ has a curious feel. The rhythm is almost like a slightly mad, solitary figure descending into some forbidden ruin in the distant sands. The synths have a strange serpentine sway to them, off kilter and wrong. The eerie shadows grow thick as ancient fogs as if to protect blasphemies but the sorceror, of course, must know..
‘Sing A Last song Of Valdese’ is one of the most eerie, dark tales of Kane the Mystic Swordsman of Karl Edward Wagner. If you don’t know him, then seek out every tale you can of this morally grey, deeply driven and cursed creature. A wayside tavern, a night that is not one for further travel especially alone. The music draws you in; lamplight and a hearth, warm ale and a little food. You settle and chat and the night turns slowly, almost unseen, into the eerie and the utterly damned. It offers shelter with the lighter melody for certain but the deeper sounds and growing sinister, diabolical almost sounds hints that perhaps this night is not a good one to have arrived here by chance. But, there again, perhaps chance had no say in the matter….and at the end, is that a lone figure who travels on?
‘Riders Beyond The Sunrise’ brings an urgency to the album. The swirft string sounds and the chatter of the drums bring a sense of eagerness and the synths swell with the excitement of what is to come. This is beautiful, epic music. It waves a graceful arm and whole vistas appear before you. The land of Kull himself, a world before the sinking of Atlantis. Cinematic, vast and simply full of yearning this is music to adventure to! However perhaps some adventures take the unwary by surprise. ‘The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune’ is of course both a classic tale of diabolical sorcery and unshackled deterination, and known to millions more through the classic White Dwarf published D&D scenario ‘The Halls Of Tizune Thane’. Like the tale this begins slowly and winds up faster and faster as the magic surrounds us, the hero lost in the halls of mirrors, deadly reflections at every turn. This is superbly arrange and composed; tension rising, the struggle apparent, the hero battling on to freedom….
‘Echoes Of Valor’ is a haunting composition. The odd base synth sound with a deep almost vibrating edge makes it feel edged but as the other layers swell, as they ebb and flow and the percussion rises that root becomes the spine for simply beautiful epic music. The sense of travel or moving towards whatever awaits is just glorious to experience. Adventurers, scoundrels, heroes and freeswords; the pull is irresistible (and maybe if you’re very lucky you may find the original anthology…..)
And we close with the strange and the grotesque. The horror and the humanity of ‘Linortis Reprise’. Read the strange and incredible tale to this music. There is a deep melancholy here, a sadness that has seeped into the moss and the rotten wood, the cracked and broken walls and the tunnels through and around and beneath the remnants of the battle. A place of forgotten souls, recalled by the heartbreaking music. There are twists of light to the melody that hurt even more by their layering beside the ugliness of others and the constant sense of loss and perhaps just a pinch of unfairness. Forgotten does not always mean dead and the scars of battle may indeed live on.
If like me you missed this on first release this is pretty much an essential catch up if the epic and heroic. If Atlantean Sword make your heart beat faster, this will too. An album of hard muscled thews and ancient mystery, of forbidden places and diabolical pacts and indeed high adventure. And even better this will either send you back to your library or point the way to strange worlds you have missed.
Frankly this is just a godsend to me wrapped in the most epic, full bloodied music. Buy, buy, buy…
Gizmo
Regal Hymns of Blood | Barak Tor
LRDXN147 – Barak Tor – Regal Hymns of Blood | Barak Tor | Dale Of Shadows
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