THE DEMON LORD WILL HAVE HIS TUNES
I'll be honest, I bought this because the woodcut of Rob made me laugh, and I was intrigued, but damn this is a superb dark fantasy record.
The opening tune "Shadow of the Demon Lord" starts with disquieting violins and then kicks it up with chunky guitars and theramin style vocals, exactly capturing the gleefully Satanic B-movie vibe that is this exceptional RPG.
The remaining tracks are dark abmient threat and menace. I ran through the whole album twice during our game last night, and it always underscored the menace and doom of the action perfectly. We had an exceptional session. "This one's called 'The Last Days of Man'" I announced cheerfully, as the hateful dead scrambled up the walls of Martyr's Point. Each track layers on emotions of doomed heroism.
The last three tracks have vocals. "Scary" has a growling death metal feel, "Shadow Inside Me" is operatic metal, and "The One Who Whispers" blends the two styles. I can't see myself using those tracks as much ingame except maybe as session intro theme tune perhaps, but they are rockin' tunes completely at home in any metal collection. The composition, production quality and playing by Sonor Village are just fantastic, and I'm off to find more of their work.
I'll be listening to this record for years to come, when I play the game, read the game, or any time I want to get my dark fantasy brain ticking over. Schwalb has brought the same quality to his first music release as he has to all of the print and PDF material. Next time I'm facing the depths of hell, this will be the sound I hear.
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