This is a piece of music from Rob Darken that seems to be an attempt to capture the flavor of the soundtrack of the movie Conan the Barbarian. Whether it is successful or not, depends quite a lot on whether the listener is one who wants a technically precise musicianship or a fanatical spirit of creativity. The epic feeling of adventure and warlike danger in a time when a man is as good as its swordarm seeps through the rather cold sonic layer of Lord Wind’s tracks for about half of the running time. One is also subject, however, to the nasty revelation that the standards for today in this style of music are notably lower than they would have been two decades ago. The sounds here are the clear but digital ambience of a computer home-studio. The ambience in fact reminds me of a computer game or two, but it would be easy to give an impression that this is relegated to the status of boring background music. It is not background music, but intended to be ambient music for a meditation on ancient times and pagan religion. Lord Wind is recommended to anyone who favors folk melodies and escapism in black metal; yet also for the people who wish to approach ambient music but do not want to go to the outright minimalistic releases. Beware of a shameless violation of the warrior honor in ripping of the tune of an old soundtrack piece for the track “Mystery”.

© 2002 black hate