Artist: Trasgo
Title: Tales From Viriandor
Type: Album
Label: Digital
So our favourite cheese stealing goblin and user of hidden blades Trasgo returns bringing more tales of dark doings and grim games.
Now first take a look at that cover….remind you of anything just a little? Venom, hmm? At War With Satan perhaps? Well you’ll be pleased to know that musically there is no comparison, this is till 100% Trasgo. But there is a link for me, an album where Trasgo spreads his wings/arms/ears a little and turns in an epic of well over an hour of music. Hence it has taken some time to come to grips with this new adventure.
So let’s roll the dice and enter Viriandor.
Please also not that the tale is told on the Bandcamp site (just not the mobile app) so this too is all Trasgo. I shall leave you to hunt the details and I shall paint the broad wash of the adventure as it feels to me.
‘Tyrohedron: The Dice Of Destiny’ has a pulsing, almost creeping beat. But such a rich and full sound here as the goblin inspects the magical item. Propably weighing it up in hand both as to value and purpose…The ominous gathering of magic is in the moody, doom threaded music. But dice are made to be rolled I guess and when it is rolled…something gathers, a change, a darkness. The layering and complexity of the glittering magic threaded through the basic tune is wonderful. Mysterious, epic and pulling you in just as our hero vanishes from Zamora and into a strange new world.
Drums beat, ritualistic lead to ‘Invocation Of The Codmen’. The music is strange and uncanny, full of an ominous and unpleasant intent. A ceremony, the sense of something that should not be roused from the sea… Does our hero intervene or run?
‘The Emerald Shores Of Viriandor’ by turns, is a sound of wonder and of the simple awe inspired by exploring a new land. The music leads us across this. A sense of natural majesty woven with history and a slow feeling of becoming part of the natural flow of the peoples and the ways. And what use could a goblin of the shadows and of sharp blades and nasty flails be?
‘Alvoriel (Moonlight Reveries)’ is a smooth, cool and shadowy tune. It has a sense of grace with it as perhaps befits a keenly intelligent queen os such a land. Sharp eyes, sharper blade; the kind of regent who might have a use for the being behind the whispers of jobs done, lives terminated. There is such a sense of creeping closer to some power in this track. It is like a moth slowly circling an irresistable, inevitable flame. Closer and closer, faster and faster until. They meet? And strangely the music returns to the dextrous shadow walking, but an air of something else beside it. Perhaps direction, perhaps the presence of power and the building of a partnership? Whatever those two streams of music go on as one.
‘The Legend Of The Twin Lakes’ has the sounds of night, and of a glittering starlit sky. A calm flow of moonlight upon still waters perhaps. It shifts in approach, darker and slower as though we have descended into the individual tale. It is dreamlike, unearthly. And in the end…. ominous.
‘Endovellicus, Broken God Of The Earth’ is a mournful passage indeed. The melody whispers of loss, the melody and insistent worry tapping at your mind. There seem to be twin tales woven through this once more. We hear the lapping of water on shores, a trickling away of the same, or perhaps of life. Two tales, both of lonely words…and strange, distant sound of crumbling.
The world shifts once more. ‘Adamastor, Shackled Lord Of The Storm Giants’ begins with classical grandeur. It has a sense of war, something our goblin knows all too well. The storm giants, perchance, laying waste to a once vibrant land and strong kingdom. It rises, engulfing hope with every louder waves of synth and the quickening percussion. Doom clouds of music coalescing… and silence.
‘Ataegina, Uncrowned Mistress Of The Underworld’ fills the void. As the title hints the music is filled with the funeral sounds of death. It almost skitters across the ground at times, and fills with a sad, lonely quiet at others. It feels like the sound of a slow collapse or the gathering of rot somehow. With a sound born of doomy metal it rises higher and higher, symphonic counterpoints spiralling around it until it finally falls and fades to the tolling of the bells.
‘Estadea, Silent Procession Of The Dead’ feels like the armies retreating from the war to my mind. Not so much defeat as balance returned. Trumpets sound in order and as things should be. The sound of a world returning to itself, and the cracks slowly closing as the undead depart…
‘The Gathering Darkness’ seals this work. Some wonderful pulsing almost goth bassline leads us into the shadows. Another journey it feels, a long one. Scars from what has passed carried with intent, a job to finish perhaps. Another journey to take alone. It is one that has moments of hesitation and regret int the quiet stuttering passages but always determination, or perhaps grim stubborness, resurge and push our hero on. This tale is closed, but the journey goes on.
This is a hugely ambitious work from Trasgo. An epic tale laid out in his own words which I have merely skated across, but always the music feeds it. There is no denying this is a long album to undertake in one sitting which I am sure may put some people off but, perhaps see it as a novel: It can be taken to a point, rested for a moment and then picked up once more. It is a far more smooth production whilst retaining the darkness and the shadows of the previous works, it is more symphonic in style yet its vision remains in the darker places. It is an exploration and, perhaps in some ways, an internal discussion as to how the inspiration can drive the music forward in future hides within this too.
The future looks fascinating for this project; things are evolving, experiments are tried. It is what you hope musicians will do regardless of how it influences future endevours. So really all I can say is give it some of your time as it is worth following the goblin into this musical adventure wherever he goes.
At least you can be sure there will be a good supply of nice cheeses along the way.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 