Grîmmöld, a solo artist who uses medieval synth tones and blasts of screeching black metal to portray tales of creatures, magic, and adventure, recently released their Noldorin Halls EP.
Noldorin Halls, whose title references an Elvish race dreamed up by J.R.R. Tolkien, mostly features winding instrumental passages that evoke mountain peaks and perilous encounters, the recordings bathed in ambient grit that gives them the feel of an old fantasy movie soundtrack. Penultimate track “Sirannon” is where Grîmmöld lets loose, unleashing barbed wire guitar and roiling blastbeats over a bed of creeping synth and regaling us with accounts of “great crypts,” “shadows and flames,” “flowing waters plunged into forever blackness,” and “dark technology bringing forth twisted ways” in a voice pitched somewhere between a raspy whisper and a hellish shriek. Melodic and raw, the track should appeal to fans of dungeon synth, lo-fi brutality, and Lord of the Rings.