Artist: Trasgo
Title: War Eternal
Type: Album
Label: Digital
This was hard. A hard one to review, a rod for my own back. I mean I have had this for a good while as Trasgo sent it to me in advance of the release but not only is it long but it needed time too. And as I type this I’m still not sure what to say to be honest – fairly common with how I work but never fear, if I’m doing this review it means… it got to me. In a good way.
But in some good ways this is surprising.
This is the third in a trilogy, the tale of a goblin and their own personal quest amidst the uprising and war and the ominous shadow of a lich threatening to gorge upon the result and ensure there is no victory, only death.
‘Triumph Of Death’ most definitely sets the scene for this album. The sounds of battle, a chant of a children’s choir, a Serbian Orthodox chant no less by Nikolaj Velimirovic, and both an apocalyptic end of times feel as well as a stark contrast of establishment wielding of religion against the rejection of such that ideas that Trasgo the Goblin himself portrays. The music is dark and beyond grim. Slow, deep and epic synths seem to blot out any hope of light here. The hand of death lies heavy upon the kingdoms and such things attract unwanted hunger. Death begets death. Slowly in the far depth we hear another voice, a different kind of choir chanting. Inhuman, grim. Malevolent. A world of no heroism, only death.
‘Goblintide’ marches forward under a blaze of trumpets. Again though this is no celebratory, human hubris. This is a sound with a determined, and dark intent. Occasionally the music pulls back,a lonely pipe sound as though we ar watching from afar, seeing the march and the impending battle preparations. Maybe we can see individuals here, but the march of the drums soon swallows them into the whole. Endless ghosts in the horde.
‘Dungeons Deep’ is a lonely, quiet moment. It still reeks of a subterranean place with no comfort but for a moment at least the war is not here either. It is strangely sad, a musical passage where the quiet leaves too much room for your own intrusive depression to slide in on the melancholic music. There may be no hope here, but the urge to stay too is strong in the slow, enveloping music.
But war will come. ‘War Eternal’ will wait no longer. Distant battle sounds intrude, the keyboards grow harder in their sound, colder. It is a sparse sound. Skeletal. Without hope and with little reason other than it has begun and so it must continue. The epic passage is slow and builds its world with ponderous steps and snare drum; the edge in the music grows, the sharpness like a ragged edge to a well used seax. A fast pattering of beats builds until the it strikes and then moves on, forever…
‘A Kingdom Of My Own’ is an interlude of spoken word. The goblin himself recounting the rise of humanity, their destruction of the natural order and how their murder of the dark creatures brought about the rebellion and rise of the tide of war. It’s a fantastic piece, the dark, slightly rough edged voice talking as though recounting the times to those who had not yet been born, or the audience in an underground tavern.
The closing passage is another epic, ‘Journey’s End’. It is once more dark but filled with a fatigue and sadness too. The remnants of the armies of darkness sagging on the march home, their jubilation in victory gone and too tired to even cling to the fact that they have reclaimed their own destiny. It is where the music brings us back to the individual too; what of Trasgo? He survives but whilst the war is won, has Trasgo gained anything but a sense of loss? Loss of direction, of the fading path towards what he thought was his own destiny. The grip of the oppressor is shattered, the world is as it should be, but what of the individual?
It is often said you can never truly return home, so perhaps sometimes onwards is the only true path. And in the spoken words herein, Trasgo decides his own fate, alone. I shall not spoil the ending, but he lets fate decide where that shall be. But there will be cheese…..
War Eternal is a long, epic work. It is much darker than what has gone before for me and though there is the glitter of a little humour once you dig into the words it also is a sad place even in victory. But that final end? Oh it brought such a smile to my face, such a smile indeed. I hope it will to you too.
A truly fitting end to this trilogy and a wonderful piece of world building. I hope to return to it again in the future but for now I shall dwell here, nibble on some hard cheese and thing long on the actions of those who think they have some divine right, and others who simply wish to be.
This is a world away, but Trasgo’s music will get you there so swiftly.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 