I’m no black metal expert, I don’t sit in a dark room in Bergen poring over pictures of Dead and his messy ending. I understand that the genre’s become something other than what it started off as, and that it’s fragmented. But as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing. This isn’t Norwegian, there are hardly any guitars, and certainly no dead bodies.  

Table top gaming and black metal would seem to have gone hand in bloodied hand since the beginning of the latter. Vikernes is a well known D&D player, and is currently writing his own RPG based on the religions and gods of the Scandinavian peoples. The new wave of more soundscape based atmospheric black metal acts frequently reference Tolkien (Falls of Rauros a case in point), and even when they don’t directly, the Misty Mountains can be felt in several of the Cascadian black metal acts’ work.

Which leads me to the review itself, Summoning’s Old Mornings Dawn. A band who have based most of their career on setting their work within Middle Earth.

I’m no advocate of synthesised instruments in black metal, with the exceptions of Varg’s drum sequencer which still holds its attack and venom, or in other instances where the instruments sound natural, Cnoc An Tursa’s debut springs to mind. Unfortunately for Summoning, digging up a Mediaeval orchestra would have been difficult, getting them to play, more so. Rotted lips, fingers falling off, it wouldn’t be pretty. Thus the album itself is heavily reliant on synthesisers, with only minimal guitar to drive the rhythm on a few tracks. This should have been this records downfall, but its not.

The instruments for the main part sound pretty good, the production is crisp, the vocals are placed well in the mix, and are reminiscent, but not direct copies, of Filosofem era Burzum. Consequently they offer a harsh counterpoint for the music which is often the case for acts within this style, it works, well. The only time the synths grate is the first few bars of a handful of songs, before the rest of the “instruments” kick in, they come off sounding like something from Miami Vice, but only for about 4 seconds, so they can be overlooked.

The overall sound is pretty epic sounding, Of Pale White Morn is vaguely reminiscent of the theme to Game of Thrones, the album itself has that sort of tone throughout for want of a better analogy all stirring crescendo’s and airy soundscapes. And in its defence, the choral arrangements right across the album are all spot on. By rights I shouldn’t like this album, but I really do, it has that draw which keeps you coming back, and each time you do, you’ll notice something extra. It’s certainly opened my eyes to what can be achieved through technology, even without a huge budget, and I’ll be tracking down Summonings previous albums, again all set within Tolkien’s World.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU0O-4GrA98]