Artist: The Ashen Codex
Title: Sepia Realms
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Sokol Keep
I know it feels like I’ve oversaturated the Mausoleum reviews with Sokol Keep releases recently and this wasn’t going to be done this week but, as life sometimes throws shit at you, there are also times when a certain bit of music is needed. This week it has been the Flow film OST and, well, The Ashen Codex’ ‘Sepia Realms’.
‘An Adventure Is only A Step Away From A Story, And Every Path Tells’ does indeed set out those first important steps; a simple, delicate melody on the synth, the slightest of percussive ticks in the background. Calming. As the pulse of the deep keyboard sound comes in a second melody rests gently over the top and then we are taken gently but perhaps hesitantly too onwards to this path that may indeed become a story. There is that DS sense of wonder but also a sense of concern in the melody; do we really want to take this journey? But the sudden, magical shivvering melody that whispers through just captivates. This is sedately paced and very much a loving nostalgia for the origins of dungeons synth. ‘To Mourn A Paladin’ (not something I have ever done, I should stress) confirms both this love in the way the sparse sound is suddenly suffused with the richness of the synth wash, and begins to draw out a curious melancholy. As though this journey has more driving it than simple adventure. It feels not quest driven but driven by some emptiness in the life and some need of the heart.
Magical turns to ominous and eventually we enter ‘The Fall Of Thorn (Island)’ with one of those synth beginnings that with two chords pulls be back into the world where Dead Can Dance were still Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun. Funereal, almost suffocating but a sense of grandeur having fallen haunting every shadow. I often wonder if Dead Can Dance know, or have thoughts on their terrifying level of influence upon the darkest most distant corners of metal… This is just a haunted song, truly. Mesmerising.
‘The Bard Smiled And Took A Fabulous Breath, Of Summer Air, And Tasted Death’ seems once again to hold the twin themes of this album close; simple wonder and the small things and then the overwhelming melancholy of the currents that lead them to fade, to die or to turn to dust and memory.
‘Foe At The Threshold (Caves Of Chaos)’ is perhaps when the reality of this path turns to its own story rather than the gathering of previous souls journeys. This has an immediate presence, a grand though awe inspiring threat in the full sound and the falling back into the small melody of the hero as vast steps approach them. A small figure, a small blade, an ancient and strong foe.
Success leads to ‘A Magical Night’. The moment of feeling more alive than perhaps you ever have, the moment around a warm safe fire, head tilted to the heavens and watching the stars as something far distant traverses the heavens. Every star a soul. Every soul on its way…
‘A Song To Soothe A Temper Flared (Inns & Owlbears)’? Well for a start I’d never go to an inn that served owlbears anything. That’s like standing near a gnome and not expecting it to rob you blind that, is. It does somehow feel like a conversation; the light melody and the deeper one babbling away happily and somehow their different rhythms falling into a slow waltz and then an early hours gentle slumber…A sweet moment indeed.
‘A Lurking Threat Harries Us (The Mind Flayer)’ is a dark, lurking fear. Light notes our steps through the darkness, a darkness that shifts and sways at first like some tendril reaching out until the realisation of the terror that stalks us. Malevolent synths blossom outwards, filling the spaces behind and around us and fear sets in, a faster pattering of drums and urgency in the sounds of our escape.
Have you noticed somewhere this has turned to ‘us’ and ‘our’? Yes you are indeed pulled into this story, no longer a reader….
‘The Sleep Spell’ is a gentle flow, soft hollow notes falling through the feather soft wash of synths and deep into dreams. ‘Flinn The Fallen (The Tainted Sword)’ appears in thw aking world. Is this the story we have chased? A fallen soul, once good now lost in ruin and terrible acts from bad decisions? The music has that sadly dancing melody as the backwash opens up a dark sound, a tragic series of events perhaps? The percussion pushes towards a conclusion where at last the fallen figure has a last glimmer of the good they once were..
‘Axe Above The Mantelpiece’. Memroies live in place, and perhaps also in objects. There it rests in our home , upon a well build wall where you can always see it from your favourite old chair. Firelight glinting from old metal and wood with the patina of every step and every swing along the shaft. There cannot help but be that twinkling harpsichord melody of nostalgia as the fire crackles and the ale sets in. Places and times surge out in the keyboard sounds; cold nights, hard days, dark souls. But also the magic, the journey, the setting things to right simply because they had to be. A final sip, that yellow and organge flickering firelight on metal and wood where the step did indeed become a story…
Thank you. I needed that world.
Gizmo
The Ashen Codex – Sepia Realms | The Ashen Codex | SOKOL KEEP
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