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Ancient - Det Glemte Riket
Copyright © 1999 Hammerheart Records
1. Trolltaar
2. Nattens Skj0nnhet
3. Eerily Howling Winds
4. Det Glemte Riket
5. Huldra Dans
6. Paa Evig Vandring
7. Fjellets Hemmelighet
8. Algol
9. Sweet Leaf
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From the "Bands You Can't Imagine Once Were Far From Sucking" heap is this retrospective of rare Ancient releases, as if after the past couple of disastrous cheese logs of albumic proportions Aphazel and entourage decided to hang up the black trenchcoats and get on with their lives, namely watching more vampire television and taking more bong hits. Seemingly incoherent to our modern perspective therefore is how good this thing is. Joyful melodies seek an inclination beyond the visible world in the exuberance and careless complexity of the passages of music joining together these songs. Parts of each work are cyclical, built of riffs which interchange in a pattern which then determines a simple keyshift cycle, but much of this is made in the style of middle Emperor or England's melodramatic Cradle of Filth with unfurling melodies detouring through dark assonances before building the collision of themes which gives each song its pattern. From the massive melodic wanderings of the three songs rescued from 1995's massively undernoticed "Trolltaar" EP to the 7" versions of various accepted classics, this is a great disc which tapers into a final section of more recent works which are more dilute but still tepid enough to hold our attention on the dream of epic emotion which is early Ancient.
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