Artist: Blades of Folmär / The Haligtree
Title: Split MMXXVI
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Blaggard Records
One of those releases where everything intrigued me. We have the still rather new but already excellent label Blaggard Records (needs more Barbarian Ring!), the already featured on this blog Blades of Folmär (this time with less of the persecuting innocent goblins) and the new to me project The Haligtree with, of course, the Elden Ring inspiration (I won’t tell you exactly how many hours I’ve spent in the Lands Between but…ahem… its over 2000…)
So here I am.
Blades Of Folmar lead the way on the split with six tracks. Opener ‘A Curious Looking Doorway’ is straight away, a wonderful, threshold of magic to the lands contained in Crypt Of The Serpent King and Fighting Fantasy books. It is dark but just like those games it is the sense of being on the verge of adventure that takes you first. It is strangely warm and bright despite the depths you are about to descend. The folly of the young adventurer? Perhaps, but to adventure is to embrace the danger. ‘Mana Regeneration’ is slower (isn’t it always) and beautifully ethereal, a moment to gather oneself in the darkness before raising the torch once more and entering the grim ‘Crypts Of The Count’. The sound is like that one single torch being the light to the shadows, casting its gaze in a place that perhaps, as the dark music suggests, it was unwise to enter. It feels like steady and careful steps but the buzzing edge of the synths leave you balance on the edge of danger. It’s utterly enthralling for me.
‘A Quest For Treasures Untold’ stalks the world on the glorious, sharp edge of the Korg, a feeling of danger in those tones the adventurer steps over. But once across that threshold that wards off the faint of heart the eerie, mystical space beyond offers the richjes of the unknown. Where we find…’A Ring Of Underwater Breathing’. Blades of Folmär do not disappoint; the music brought is that curious stillness and quiet that only exists beneath the surface, floating, an interloper in an alien world that only opensits beauty to you as you breathe in the slow, rippling waves of the music. An experience only adventure can offer…
Blades of Folmär leave us with ‘ Frozen Moats’. Not simply icy, but indeed frozen, the brittle music spreading a stillness as it breathes out. I feel curls of frost touch me, sharp ice forming in piano notes… And I remain.
The Haligtree being with ‘Empyrean’. A slow overture, rising synths in a very filmic style. That slow and subtle introduction with those little shards of colour sliding in almost unnoticed. It builds and then the percussion appears and we are pulled on a ride into the world. A gallop, vocals in the mid distance and that melody that can only swell an adventurer’s heart. It is soft but epic at the same time, 80s film music with a swirling ambience and gorgeous tempo to the music and the rhythm. Urgent, maybe impatient might be a better word as we charge towards something. Part synthwave, part prog tinged rock, part that wash of game music. It is a fantastic and unexpected blend full of character and storytelling, of guitar and synth and energy. Heroic fantasy indeed; immersive, adventurous and brimming with the vibrations of a magical world.
‘Learning To Fight Again’ is a fluttering of notes and scattering melodic flourishes. There is an urgency which to me seems balanced between panic and joy. The music is the speeding, dancing, spinning prog with a curiously discordant guitar break, pulsing synth work and then a step towards a more controlled dance that has the twist of some far Eastern heroic world for me. From panic to over come the loss to re-discovering the dance within and embracing the steps you once knew so well. It made me smile so much as I realised how much like my experience with Elden Ring combat this was; panic, terror and then that moment when you realise you are dancing with the adversary and you are there on the verge of a fluid, truly magical victory. Actually quite an extraordinary musical journey of the feel woven in a style of some of the fine JRPG music of those fights, those glories.
This is a fascinating split with distinctive styles; the evocative and expressive dungeon synth of Blades of Folmär, and the exhuberant and celebratory prog rock game music stylings of The Haligtree. Both so good, and oddlyt working so well as a split too.
Honestly I’m a little breathless by the end of this. Go and try this; it’s definitely one for the gamers; whether video or page turning is your pleasure you will end up in both their worlds…
Gizmo
BLADES OF FOLMÄR/THE HALIGTREE – SPLIT MMXXVI | Blaggard Records
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