Summoning - Depressive as hell

[FIAT]

The music of Summoning is the dream of a being who, while suffering the effects of time, pines for eternity. Much more than simply nostalgia, winding melancholic melodies--exuding both the sorrow that accompanies patience and the glory of perseverance--suggest Platonic anamnesis and the consequent realization that this world is necessarily a "vale of tears", to borrow an expression from the Salve Regina. Interestingly, a related project works under the name of Die Verbannten Kinder Evas.

[August]

Is Minas Morgul worth getting into? I'm really only familiar with Stronghold and Oath Bound, both of which I enjoy, but when I first listened to Minas Morgul the other day it felt a bit juvenile, or silly even. I made a little pharaoh dance to the track Orthanc.

[Humanicide]

Is Minas Morgul worth getting into? I'm really only familiar with Stronghold and Oath Bound, both of which I enjoy, but when I first listened to Minas Morgul the other day it felt a bit juvenile, or silly even. I made a little pharaoh dance to the track Orthanc.

Minas Morgul is better than both of those albums. Yes!

[loam]

Is Minas Morgul worth getting into? I'm really only familiar with Stronghold and Oath Bound, both of which I enjoy, but when I first listened to Minas Morgul the other day it felt a bit juvenile, or silly even. I made a little pharaoh dance to the track Orthanc.

Definitely. That's really an amazing album, although Dol Guldur and Nightshade Forests are probably better as a whole (and don't have that 8-bit Nintendo sound to the synths).

[Faustian]

Is Minas Morgul worth getting into? I'm really only familiar with Stronghold and Oath Bound, both of which I enjoy, but when I first listened to Minas Morgul the other day it felt a bit juvenile, or silly even. I made a little pharaoh dance to the track Orthanc.

Yes. The composition is sound, if not the synth quality, but it was the mid-90's, Summoning probably didn't have access to higher end equipment at the time. Still, The Passing of Grey Company makes me cringe everytime.

Also, check into Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame.

[aquarius]

Is Minas Morgul worth getting into? I'm really only familiar with Stronghold and Oath Bound, both of which I enjoy, but when I first listened to Minas Morgul the other day it felt a bit juvenile, or silly even. I made a little pharaoh dance to the track Orthanc.

Yes. The composition is sound, if not the synth quality, but it was the mid-90's, Summoning probably didn't have access to higher end equipment at the time. Still, The Passing of Grey Company makes me cringe everytime.

Also, check into Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame.

Minas Morgul and even Lugburz have an intense spontaneous energy that the later albums just don't have, even though they're better composed on the whole. In saying that I find most of their albums a bit patchy at some point (Dol Guldur is the most consistent).

By the way this is more of an equipment question but does anyone know what kind of synths these old bands even use? more likely they use an electronic keyboard with sampled orchestral sounds.

[Conservationist]

While I'm not against minor key music, metal is mostly written in the same modes (I'm not sure it even makes sense to say "scale" here). This means you have roughly the same intervals being used again in layers, which reduces the music to mostly rhythm, which also means it's immensely repetitive. Contrast to classical where setting the base key/scale is a method to achieve variation from that standard, but only in the context of it; it's much more orderly than idiot jazz or even, sadly, the somewhat primitive methods of metal...

Let's get away from the kiddie music.

[fallot]

I like the primitive methods of metal. There's room to grow towards complexity too, but it's a lesson in itself. When you take away the layers, still something remains. Lets try both; have a platform where metal spirit and technique is both discussed. That already seems to be coming together, slowly. We should definitely make kiddie attitudes shameworthy though (not with mockery, but with frank reasoned statement); some of the Sadistic reviews were excellent in that regard.

[Conservationist]

Side note:

For Summoning, everything up through Nightshade Forests is excellent. Dol Guldur is clearly the best. Other stuff isn't bad. I like some of the Ice Ages material too.

Wish they'd get on a bit of a Lord Wind kick and get more violent.