Faery Ring – The Urchin Prince
The Urchin Prince by Faery Ring starts off with the first track called Saltmouth. Neo-classic ambient tunes with a certain sense of dread and doom creep slowly in and set the mood. Epic, dreamish and apocalyptic pianos and violin strings work its way on the second track Grim Enceinte, The Old Gaoler. Almost kind of martial-industrial/wave meets gothic neo-classic here. Third track Dust, The Urchin Prince takes it further with the gothic sounding strings and martial drummings, fand of Swedish Puissance takes notice here. Fourth offering The Uncherished Parlours slows it down to more traditional dungeon-synth, with a catchy and deep melancholic mood attached to it. Fifth track Bellwether, Herald of the Long Slumber does indeed sound like a slumber. The kind of epic slumber one might succumb to when u have been king for far too long! A sense of malice and sadness for certain.¨
Sixth track The Starless Garden sounds like a sad and doom-forsaken garden. Not the kind of place where one might enjoy their tea and biscuits! Seventh track Mauveine, Daughter of the Comfortless King adds a soft melodic and romantic touch to all the dread and doom (that means less martial apocalyptic moods!). Eight track Prolix II, the Comfortless King, proves that… he doesn't really care for the company of his daughter. Might as well drink his sorrows away? Still having that that gothic sounding neo-classic sound. Ninth and last track Lemures (Shades or spirits of the restless and malignant dead in Roman mythology… NOT abs!). Wraps it all up in utter funeral blackness, might just be the heaviest piece of dread on the album!
And that is that! A very atypical kind of dungeon synth release which sounds… like a neo-classic orientated release from the 90s? It has that sound. A synth-minimal version of CMI´s Swedish act Arcana or a dungeon synth orientated Puissance. I guess you can call it… neo-classic martial-ambient for dungeon synth fans. Well made with lots of good intentions and ideas. There is all but one thing that bothers me. Listening to this album from the start and to the end gives you an idea that the story behind the music doesn’t live up to the epic feel that the album promises. The album could use some sounds/samples, or something else (experimental elements maybe?) to give it an otherworldly feel. The entire albums follow that neo-classic gothic violin sound (so you might as well get used to it). BUT!. If you do dig that sound (like maybe Arcana and Puissance) then this album IS something for you. All Faery Ring´s album is available on the official Bandcamp site, the tape is already sold out on Gondolin Records (go hunting!).
And that is that! A very atypical kind of dungeon synth release which sounds… like a neo-classic orientated release from the 90s? It has that sound. A synth-minimal version of CMI´s Swedish act Arcana or a dungeon synth orientated Puissance. I guess you can call it… neo-classic martial-ambient for dungeon synth fans. Well made with lots of good intentions and ideas. There is all but one thing that bothers me. Listening to this album from the start and to the end gives you an idea that the story behind the music doesn’t live up to the epic feel that the album promises. The album could use some sounds/samples, or something else (experimental elements maybe?) to give it an otherworldly feel. The entire albums follow that neo-classic gothic violin sound (so you might as well get used to it). BUT!. If you do dig that sound (like maybe Arcana and Puissance) then this album IS something for you. All Faery Ring´s album is available on the official Bandcamp site, the tape is already sold out on Gondolin Records (go hunting!).
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