Artist: Hermit Knight
Title: Pseudanthium
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Dale Of Shadows
I like starting out with confessions so here’s another. When I finally discovered that dungeon synth as a genre and scene had not vanished and was in fact strong and vibrant and innovating, I had never heard of Hermit Knight but eventually Hermit Knight, Lone Sentinel and An Old Sad Ghost became the three foundations of my return to the fold each for their own reasons. Hermit Knight because often their music simply hit me, gently, in all the right emotional places.
But shockingly this I realise is the first review for this blog (though I did sneak one in for Ave Noctum once…)
Pseudanthium is an interesting word and usually ‘explained’ by using a bunch of botanic words that you also have to look up. But it is, I find, a group of flowers or blooms that to all intents look and function as a single flower… Now there is a wonderful world simply meant for allegory and metaphor…
‘The Impermanence Of Life’ opens in that slow and sweetly introspective hay Hermit Knight is a skilled artisan of. Slow, metallic notes form the melody and the softer synth waves rise up around it to spread colour and a softness to it, the individual parts functioning as one. It is the sound of thoughts for me, turning to the matters of loss, or sadness, but a quiet acceptance that this is the way of things. It is that strange balance between heartbreaking and emotional supporting.
‘The Quest Has Just Begun’ might be seen as life moving on, maybe. A slow but considered journey beginning. There are strong but quiet drum beats which gradually take up the reins, help us march forward. They bring a sense of hope somehow, but also of adventure and a shy pride in our own determination. It flows so beautifully, paints a misty dawn behind those hills up ahead. ‘The Tall Grass Beckons’ sways with an eerie almost theremin sound but no one of unease, simply one echoing wonder. A walk in a quiet glade, a place of quiet where small things scurry through their busy lives as giants slow stride on their way. Ah, who knows? But it is where I am…surounded by simple life, in the sun.
‘The Crickets Chorus’ ilds its little dance slowly, almost wafted into a beat and the little taps behind it. It grows stronger, sounds that are almost voices, a whispering choir that is ageless and simple and still inspires awe.
‘Some Battles Can Not Be Won’ makes me imagine a moment between songs that brings us here. There is a sadness to the melody, the martial drumming almost the reminder that sometimes reality must block the way of where we might want to go at that time. At that time. There will be another day, the gods willing. The subtleties in the sounds, the almost subliminal notes just bind you to this moment, standing on the side unable to move. Hoping.
‘Polydactyl Prints’ has a more dangerous sound, the eerie seeming to carry the most subtle of warnings. A deeper sound, careful notes. It offers an unknown quality, the lighter melody hinting that fear of the unknown and the unusual is not always borne out, to me at least. But ‘ware thee, regardless. Who knows how things may turn on the dice roll, the drumming girding our loins, offering a little courage, and onwards we go.
‘Heavy Lies The Heart’, a moment of introspection, an interlude of thought as we rise and stride on into ‘Forever’. This is a song of the ethereal and the eternal. Music like light from above shining through gossamer. It is there, before us. A long way, many many miles, along valleys and climbing hills. But it is there and we will reach it. We will.
Hermit Knight is a name that for me is perfect for the music they craft and conjour. There is always a deep sense of humanity and of compassion in this music, an offering of support to those who need it. Pseudanthium is the most beautiful encapsulation of this; quests are hard because they are quests, and we all struggle. But there are so many who see with the same eyes and whose support and quiet, gentle determination comeing together as one is one of the most beautiful forces in any world.
Hermit Knight is a treasure worthy of any quest.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 