Artist: Trasgo
Title: Nightfall
Type: Album
Label: Digital
Hide your cheese and run for your snivelling lives adventurers, for Trasgo the Goblin is here! I am a little late to the war, but I was recently kindly sent a code for this their second album and with a new album due later this year I had to spread a little goblin propaganda to prepare you for your new overlords!
‘As Night Falls Upon These Misty Woodlands…’ Wind, the caw of crows eager for corpses, light fading in the sound of those old school synth sounds; light notes falling gently and the wash of deeper sounds and night closes in. A subtle percussion begins far, far away. Something is stirring. Something is coming. Only the drums remain as if to say…’So Shall Doom Fall Upon The Kingdom Of Man’. This is dark and pure old school goblin gnarly dungeon synth; the deep dark dungeon feel, the martial percussion leading the horde from the shadows and bringing darkness with them in their eyes and crude metal in their fists. It’s skeletal and yet so immersive; the use of the percussion is fantastic, building the synths on this sharp relentless march. Melody is crepuscular; that time where points of light still exist but the darkness is inevitable. The layering is perfect, simple and deft – a strong theme, waves of variation come and go with grace. But the march goes one. All you can do is hope and prepare.
‘Secrets Of The Mycelium Caverns’ is a strange dream. The melody and the solid drumbeats seem motionless and then a curious little tune begins to snake away in the undergrowth. A woodwind sound that is curiously enticing in a place that otherwise seems to be unwelcoming. Perhaps the spores are working.
‘Live By The Sword, Die By The Flail’ a rallying cry to all goblins as the drum beats form the ranks and the bleakest, most viciously malevolent sweep of dark synth sound begins. You can see their sharp eyes glinting in the dark with this passage, creeping closer. It almost seethes hate and disgust, a need for revenge but a determination to stick to the plan. It’s bleak, but so is retribution. An air of melancholy enters at one point on an emotion twisting wave, but is the sorrow for the rule about to fall or for those who fell under it’s hand?
‘A Life Lost In The Flash Of A Poisoned Dagger’ can start so quietly. A menace gradually growing out of the noises of night. The creeps along passageways, the beat more like the heart feeling excitement of the deed to be done. A dungeon crawler of a track, slowly coming to its crescendo and then slinking back into the shadows. Only death left in its wake.
The album closes with the extended, twenty five minute ‘Nightfall (Trasgo Returns)’. The sounds of a swamp; birds and frogs and a stillness, a lightness even with the hoot of an owl. It builds as those militaristic drums come closer. Perhaps our anti-hero hears it for the first time, or perhaps he has been waiting for the call for long years. Whatever, there is a sense of reflection to the music, a soft turning inward with the tune, but the inevitable turning back outwards in a rise of the malevolent sounds of deep synths. I like to think this is the workings of Trasgo’s mind; not some great leader perhaps but at one with the army he sees finally rise. The music rises higher, the march continues straight forward but the swathe of synth wrapped around it moves with a sweeping curve. I’m sure I’m wrong but I like to think of it as Trasgo’s own path. In step with the army but a mission all his own. One blade in the dark, the correct skull crushed by a flail and the world pivots. While all the fearful armies of the humans stare at the sword it is the knife at their back that may topple the world. It’s impossible for me not to wonder on these things, the music holds me and offers these things with the omnipresent drum beats, the dark skies painted by the synths and those melodies which whisper in and out.
A moment of the cries of battle, just a moment at first and then the drum beats harder. The hoards are here in that black sound, the crusted, rusted armour and filthy weapons. The battle is joined, heroes will die and be made and die again.
The music becomes deafening but the drum is the heartbeat once more from the previous track. I think I see Trasgo, alone, reaching the target, glancing out over the battle and seeing all the horde destroying everything before them.
Tragso has his target. One thrust.
Deeply, deeply evocative.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 