Land of the Dead

I like all of Eldamar's music, but this fifteen minute EP hits it out of the park for me.

Eldamar is the project of one man in Askim, Norway. He's a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, elves, and screaming vocals. In interviews, he seems satisfyingly broody.

When I first started listening to it, there were a couple aspects of Eldamar's music that I found off-putting. First of all, his insistence that his music creates a "Tolkien-like atmosphere." The name "Eldamar" is taken from the Lord of the Rings, apparently...big kudos to you if you know which part. I don't like the idea of a musician basing his work on a book. This is almost certainly because I'm a snob, but...I dunno, doesn't that seem gimmicky to anyone else?

Second, nearly all of his tracks start with a long fade-in and end with a long fade-out. I HATE it when musicians do this--it saps the momentum from an album and robs the excitement of the track transition. Some of my favorite albums--I'm thinking World Eater by Blanck Mass--have masterful track transitions. Eldamar doesn't attempt them.

Eldamar's songs also have a certain sameness. All of them are in 4/4 time. The set of instruments never changes. The tempo doesn't change much. If you like lyrics, too bad, there aren't any. At least, none that I can understand.

But in the last couple months, Eldamar has won me over, and Land of the Dead is the preeminent example why. Let me talk about the vocals first. Land of the Dead contrasts a growly, screamy male voice with an ethereal female one. Neither of the voices sounds particularly human. In fact, the female voice isn't human-- it's computer generated. This contrast between the monstrous male voice and the angelic female one creates a surreal, mythological mood. It reminds me of Beauty and the Beast.

Eldamar pulls a similar trick in his instrumentation. The bass is growly--a rumbling wall of discontented sound. The treble instruments (the piano and the computer-generated flute) sound triumphant and pure. They remind me of the biblical verse: "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Or the part of Lord of the Rings where Frodo and Sam have to carry the ring through Mordor. This is certainly the reference that Eldamar is trying to make. The album cover has a the Tolkien reference: "In Mordor where the shadows are."

To me, Eldamar's work is a great example of how computers can help us to create extraordinary art. To some, I'm sure that the computer-generated female voice would be an abomination. But the way that the voice perfectly bends itself to each note enables a powerful artistic mood that would not have been possible otherwise.

Strongly recommended. If you like "Land of the Dead," try "Return of the Darkness," "Another Journey Begins," or really anything from either of his other albums. The nice thing about finding an artist who makes a lot of similar-sounding music is that if you like one track, you will probably like them all.