dungeon synth

Without wanting to sound absolutely fucking cringe as fuck, there is something incredibly beautiful about this demo. Yeah, Grausamkeit, via Blod Besvimelse very weirdly going viral recently, has become something of a meme, but IMO these releases are timeless. The shaky mix of dungeon synth put to degraded tape and barely audible, truly necro black metal is just perfect. Expectations should be tempered of course as this a cassette demo, not a searing working of…

The patchiest entry into the otherwise excellent Dungeons & Catacombs compilation series; III is mostly excellent but is dragged down by a few compositions of questionable quality, as well as a fucking cover of a Christmas song and also a Burzum cover. These entries heavily give the impression that the series is running out of steam and really cheapen what is otherwise a nice little collection of dark dungeon tunes.

Dra Sad II has a totally different vibe from the first, with a much more dreamy and ambient feel. These elements have always been present, but are much more apparent here, especially in the fantastic closing track, the 16 minute “Neghu”. Very inspiring!

After very much enjoying Dra Sad III fairly recently I decided to go back and start at the beginning. The first entry is very epic indeed, like the soundtrack to some very important battle that will decide the fate of the realm, or something. It is also incredibly well produced. It is the perfect soundtrack for grinding out levels in your RPG / MMO of choice.

Came for the dungeon synth, stayed for the incredibly dark and moving atmospheric soundscapes! Holy shit, if there was ever the ideal “music” to accompany some sort of forbidden occult ritual then it would be this. Brilliant!

I love the concept of this album title. Old meets new! Knight meets nerd! Ha! As far as the record goes, the excellent Quest Master blends olde worlde dungeon synth passages with more modern production and beats. The “beats” however aren’t obnoxious or intrusive, and the whole thing blends together extremely well. It seems simple on paper but it warrants multiple listens to truly appreciate the balance.

OK so, if you are able to read that title out without thinking of Groundskeeper Willie then you are a stronger man than me. This kooky, twisted proto-dungeon synth record is a rewarding listen for those who have strayed far from the beaten path. It is however, quite patchy. Some of the later tracks are very rough indeed, but The Shinning Moon (Ackh!) is worth the delve for completionists and historians of this nerdy genre.

One of life’s simple pleasures is unearthing “forgotten” gems from the past in genres that you love. Enter Dragons Of Autumn Twilight then, by Casket Of Dreams; a project that has enjoyed something of a second wind in the Covid end times of 2020 onwards. In regards to this 1998 debut however; frosty, minimal synth passages meld with more almost classical style songwriting to really whisk you away to a far away land. I’ve been…

Stunning piece of ancient dungeon synth (in relative terms, of course). Surprisingly well put together and orchestrated considering its age and place in the overall gestation of the genre. Fantastic stuff.

The sequel to the excellent D&C compilation continues in much of the same vein; showcasing a surprisingly wide variety of artists that adopt the “dungeon synth” moniker. I would say for the most part, like 80% of this stuff is really good. There are some moments towards the end where certain sounds / experiments don’t really gel all that well (there’s a song with drums for example, that just kills the vibe entirely), but for…

Darker and more mature than the debut demo in every possible way other than the production. In reality, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same kit was used to record and produce this as the previous demo, but the bass/treble frequencies are more present here as the compositions are fuller. That means less glaringly-obvious wobbly solo instruments, but it does mean that the lo-fi soundstage is dominated by drums, background pads and the like; resulting…

Markedly shakier and thinner on the ground (for lack of a better time) whilst compared to the demo that followed it, but Im Heidenwald Elfgaards is fucking stacked to the gills with kooky atmosphere and dusty 90s DS vibes. It’s a touch sloppy (plenty of slips on the ol’ keys) but really is no worse off for it.

The best way to listen to Trollheim. There is very little need to go anywhere else. This hour long comp pulling together the two demos Im Heidenwald Elfgaards and Ensomhet is all you could want, right? Side by side it’s easier to appreciate the slight stylistic changes between the two recordings.

The final track on Burzum’s Filosofem but in album form, amirite? Nah, to be fair, this hour long stretch of magical ambient music is far more than that. Minimalist as the compositions may be, this does not stop the atmosphere from being all-encompassing. Great for relaxation, reading, or what have you.

Track 2 lets this one down considerably, otherwise this is fantastic, dusty, archaic “proto” dungeon synth. The underwhelmingly-titled “Outro” gets very spacy, where the first and final tracks are far more involving, like a cross between early Mortiis and a Sega Mega Drive video game.

Bosh! Is this reel lyfe? Or is this juste phantasee? I’ve kinda unintentionally managed to avoid the whole “keller synth” movement so I’m massively unfamiliar with the style. All I know is that this sounds like a strange mix between like, 8-bit or video game music, and dungeon synth style keyboard pieces. Oh, and a touch of bad black metal on top! Honestly, this cauldron of a cacophonous creation is actually quite endearing.

Somewhat underwhelming but – in all fairness – well constructed and executed ambient dungeon synth. It felt rather promising at first, so I was a bit disappointed by the record’s end, but others may find much more value here than I did.

Move over Jim Kirkwood! LOL for real though, this a very fun and slightly pompous (in musical terms of course) journey through a D&D campaign that never was… the Elder Scrolls II sequel that never came… the Knightmare feature film that never got made… you get the idea. Throw in some brilliant artwork and you’ve got the full package.

Super low effort, not very interesting, very one dimensional. Truly uninspired.

Vocals kill this one dead, fam. Expect similar excellent yet dirty keyboard from BSOD; the same that you would find in Grausamkeit or BB. Trouble is, man here be croaking over this thing like friggin’ Gnar Kill’s “Mustard Man”. Sounds like pure shit, I won’t lie.

Beautiful, mesmerizing, magical – these are some of the words that I would use to describe the music on Darken Wood’s II. I know that dungeon synth is hardly the Superbowl of underground music, but I would say that this is a very underrated project lurking in the shadows. For the quality of the compositions here, Darken Wood definitely deserves more exposure.

An interesting release from the excellent Old Tower. Lots of ambient noises, soundscapes and the like. Not to reduce it down to cheap descriptive tactics but it’s like a dungeon synth version of one of those spooky CDs you can get for Halloween, that is until the actual synthesizer work kicks in. Honestly, this invokes the spirit of the original “ds sound before it was a genre” in such a fantastic way. Truly brilliant playing.

Magical dungeon synth. Yes, there are parts of this where it feels like Mortiis should be seeking legal advice but those moments are confined to the first two tracks alone. As Dragon Citadel Elegies sprawls, as does the pool of sounds from which it draws from, creating a dark and forboding atmosphere. Despite this, track 2, “Inn at the Borderland” is an absolute bop.

Frankly, a pointless release in every sense of the word, despite the lovely new artwork. Pretty sure this was available as a bootleg for many years. Truly, it should have stayed as such. I feel like I’m at a house party and some dork has put Crypt Of The Wizard on the stereo and the only effect it’s had is causing all the twats in the room to shout at each other a little louder….

I discovered Hole Dweller around the same time as that RuneScape.wav dungeon synth project and to be honest I often conflate the two, even though I’m clearly an idiot because they both have entirely different vibes! Granter, more ambitious and more involving than the cult classic Flies The Coop (which has now been re-recorded or something?), Returns To Roost is an interesting set of songs that are led by synth melodies that toe the line…

More Thulean Mysteries grade ambient piano work from Burzum. If not entirely original, it is at least hypnotic and spellbinding in the true ways that Burzum can invoke, which is more than I can say for a lot of the recent single releases. One thing to note however is the dreadfully low sound quality on the instrumentation here. His earlier synth / keyboard work sounded glorious – including the “post prison” synth albums – but…

It perhaps says a lot about the state of Burzum in 2024 if a near 15-minute long atmospheric piano piece has you thinking “hey, this isn’t half bad!”. What would usually be filler or an ambient piece to round things out has actually cemented itself as the most interesting thing to come from the project in 2024. This is mainly because of the stark difference between the work here and the other lacklustre black metal…

Calderum’s Mystical Fortress Of Iberian Lands really took me by surprise. This thing goes hard! Combining melodies and hooks with ferocious blastbeats (the latter often becomes the focus of more “brutal” black metal) and balancing a “kvlt” sound with a clear and warm production, Calderum literally ticks all of my fucking boxes. Seriously, the drumming on this is absolutely fantastic; “Fortress Of Doom” will give you a good example as to why, with tons of…

Easily the best of the three releases so far. It also has no guitars or drums, so go figure. “The Nature Of The Gods” is more akin to what we’ve heard on Thulean Mysteries or The Ways Of Yore. It is also far more stable and consistent, actually managing to conjure up an atmosphere. Perhaps not all hope is lost then? We shall see.

Dark, moody, slushy, obtuse “vaporwave” from one of the more immediately aesthetically recognisable projects in the genre. Imagine the kind of thing you’d usually hear on a dungeon synth record but chopped, sliced and obfuscated from you in a hazy cloud of what is essentially a blob of hypnagogic sound.

Genuinely sounds more like something that you would hear at a renaissance fair than as the soundtrack to someone’s D&D campaign. The instrumentation is so beautiful and varied it would perhaps be too reductive to label this music solely as dungeon synth.

Excellent, classic dungeon synth release from a now legendary project. Mournful, evocative and beautifully composed. The right balance of active instrumentation and dreamy atmospherics.

Dark, brooding dungeon synth with enough variation and instrumentation to keep you interested despite its hypnotic, meandering pace and nature. Truly a decent collection of ambient synth tunage.

A thoroughly disappointing outing from the usually very excellent Goatmoon. I do not dislike Silver Serpent for its departure into dungeon synth, I dislike it because it is a poor effort. Even for the more atmospheric, dreamy end of the genre, where melody and I suppose songwriting are replaced by pure feeling and invocation of mood, Silver Serpent fails to provoke any sort of worthwhile conjuration. Instead, Silver Serpent can be relegated to “video game…

If you’ve seen any of Varg’s YouTube / BitChute / insert alternative video platform here / uploads then I do not doubt that you will be intimately familiar with this track. What first appears to be a guitar is I believe a well disguised VST instrument of some kind, but whatever it is, it leads “Forgotten Realms” memorable droning hook for 5 minutes or so. Also, isn’t “Forgotten Realms” a D&D campaign setting? You’re such…

Even for ambient Burzum, this is a very spaced out, ambient drone piece. Repetition is the name of the game, to put you into a trance-like state, no doubt. Do not confuse this tiny EP / single with the mammoth double album of the same name.

One of my favourite pieces of “dungeon synth”. It, of course, pre-dates the formation of such a genre by a considerable margin, and perhaps owes more to the worlds of Berlin School or film sountracks than it does Mortiis and other dark dungeon dwelling maniacs. There is a purity to Kirkwood’s releases that keeps it out of the mystery fjords and onto the rolling hills, the battlefields, the craggy cliffs etc. of far-off fantasy lands….

The “Space Ambient” tag is relevant here, especially on closing track “Space And Time” which sees the more typical dungeon synth structures fall away for something that is altogether more new age and Berlin School mixed together into one strange melting pot. The first three tracks are more in the vein of what you would expect from cavernous 90s synthesizer music in this vein, but with more active, orchestral elements at the forefront, rather than…

Chill as fuck compilation of really, really cool dungeon synth tunes. This has turned me on to so many fucking cool as fuck DS artists, such as Lunar Cult, Gelure, Elminster (lol) and Villein. Can’t say I’ve ever played this game but the soundtrack is boss. Random Bandcamp find of the week!

(It’s worth mentioning the OST originally came out with the game it featured in back in 1998, but wasn’t realised as a stand-alone OST until 2001) Easily one of the best game OSTs of all time, but there is always the risk that I am heavily biased, having played this game to death when I was 9 to 10 years old. I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved it. Hoenig’s soundtrack…

Where Shadows Lie simply has to be one of my absolute favourite Jim Kirkwood works. Magnificant, triumphant, uplifitng, magical, spellbinding. These are all words that can accurately convey the musical message avialable to you by pressing play on a copy of this record. Combining Berlin School longform electronics with the Tolkien fantasy vibes in a way that only he can do so well, Kirkwood is absolutely on fire here. A highlight of the entire discography…

Patches of Jim Kirkwood’s discography are almost entirely in the Berlin School style of music. Granted this kind of progressive, unfolding electronic tapestry-weaving is present in most of his work – let alone other more modern DS creators – but Nightshade is an example where the style truly and almost completely overtakes his wondrous medieval soundscapes.

Very atmospheric, bolstered by genuine tape degradation and hiss – two things that are avoided by the analogue medium community but worshipped by the black metal and dungeon synth scene (lol). Either way, this is a mysterious, spooky listen. Highly recommended for fans of the genre.

Much more low key and uninvolved than Ancient Woods. Kinda sounds like background music from a DOS game like Daggerfall during its best moments, and like pointless ambient effects in its worst. Considering the total run time is just over 15 minutes, it is a shame that the level of quality here is but a fraction of what I expected to find. This is not a gem that’s worth unearthing.

Gate Master knocks it out of the park once more with the follow up to In Pursuit Of Forbidden Knowledge. I love the black metal here, easily some of my favourite dissonant, barely audible stuff (haha). It sounds like I’m joking but this thing is absolutely dripping in atmopshere. The “dungeon synth” style pieces that punctuate the record also help serve to this function, before closer “My Journey To The Stars” goes off to oblivion….

The seemingly compilation-like nature of Varg’s “final” release as Burzum, Thulean Mysteries, coupled with the spaced out, almost relaxed tone of most of his ambient music, makes it very difficult to ascertain whether I’ve heard this before or not. It feels more familiar than it does new, and whilst that is rather welcoming in some ways, its also a bit underwhelming that this random “return” (whatever it means long term) is not something a bit…

Through a download code that was kindly shared by a friend I had the pleasure of being introduced to the world of Siege Golem, a project that walks the lines between dungeon synth and video game music. It reminds me a bit of the Kobold project, only updated and more varied in a set of a final boss themes. There’s all sorts of different vibes going on here, which is nice to see from a…

A timeless classic of the “Dungeon Synth” genreI’ve found that Fodt Til A Herske has always filled me with a profound sadness; a sadness that once again fills me as I sit here late at night writing this review whilst this record plays. When I first got the CD at 15 years old it felt as sad then as it does now, but with the music pressing on different weights from life. I guess between…

I loved the shit out of this when I was a nipper but having re-listened recently I realise that perhaps it wasn’t as good as I thought it was. I had the gold CD version of this, but without the book, because I ordered the “Mortiis pack” off Earache records (basically a copy of every studio album he has with them), in which they accidentally gave me two copies of The Grudge (the standard, and…

I recently listened to the remastered version of this, which was great fun as it’s been years since I’ve heard this, I used to play it all the time when wasting my life on WoW through the small hours of every night. Anyway, enough about me. Anden Som Gjorde Appror isn’t as good as Fodt Til A Herske or Song Of A Long Forgotten Ghost, but it does introduce more bombast into the music. These…

An interesting mix of artists, performing a bunch of tunes that are not always so typical for the sounds of the often confined dungeon synth genre. What I mean to say is, that there is a wider range of sounds here than I expected going in, and I even came away with some artists that I really want to check out, so that’s good news too. Some of the entries here are quite obscure however,…

Now this is my kind of dungeon synth. Spooky, kooky, lo-fi and minimal composition using cheap retro synths and drenched in hiss and wow / flutter. Lots of short moods and performances, rather than the longer more meandering pieces you would expect from dungeon synth artists. Really refreshing, glad I stumbled onto this, I would recommend it for any fan of the genre.

You can always rely on Jim Kirkwood to provid consistency across his colourful musical career. The man has touched on a variety of different vibes and compositional styles, from higher fantasy and religious themes to more, how shall I say, typical dungeon synths forms, but whatever he puts his hands to is always incredibly well crafted. Knight Of A Dark Grail is no different, with this 1992 offering a few selected pieces which are an…

Not gonna lie, Fief is fucking class. I feel like I’m inside a never-ending medieval fete inside my head. There’s not much that compels me to start a diet primarily of wild game, stale bread and staler beer, but Fief hits the mark. Very lovely instrumentals are the order of the daye, mayhaps not sparkly enough to win over thon young fine maidens, but beautiful enough to rouse the young men to arms. The joust…

This is a project that involves Andrea Meyer who performed mainly as Nebelhexe and also appeared on the first Cradle Of Filth record. Unfortunately, as I was really looking forward to this one, this is pretty boring to me. It kinda goes nowhere, and whilst there are a few moments of pizazz in this evil atmospheric pieces, most of the record’s run time does nothing for me. It works as cool spooky background music, but…

Invoking otherworldly trance-like dreamstates that fans of prison-era Burzum will be chomping at the bit for, Hädanfärden does not disappoint when it comes to taking you away to another place. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Lustre, a more well known project by the same artist, but Eitr is perfect dreamy dungeon synth.

Torchlight is one of those projects that falls loosely under the dungeon synth banner, but is not trying to emulate a sound from a point in time or aesthetically clone the goodness of the early 90s. No, Torchlight is so much more, instead delivering full-blown compositions with excellent clarity and depth of musical scale and talent. This is more in line with the soundtrack to an RPG computer game, using traditional instruments (or virtual copies…

The forbidden knowledge has to be, that mixing dungeon synth and raw black metal in this way is a winning combination. Sometimes the brightest truths are the ones that are there in plain sight, waiting to be grasped. LOL Anyway – Gate Master is the project centralising around founding Cradle Of Filth member Paul Ryan (who’s been out of the band since the debut record). The black metal is raw, disgusting and frenetic, which is…

Burzum’s ambient stuff gets a lot of undeserved shit, in both the prison and post-prison eras. Sôl austan, Mâni vestan is of course, no different. Admittedly, there is little variance between this, The Ways Of Yore, and even Thulean Mysteries to be honest, but if hypnotic – cosmic even – synth work is your bag, then I genuinely feel you can do no wrong in checking this out. Varg (Louie?) does invoke a consistent atmosphere…

I’ve been down a rabbit hole recently in regards to the inner-workings of the great pyramid of Giza. Not in a wacky “WaS iT a NuClEaR PowErPlanT1?!?!” kinda way, just generally trying to understand one of the oldest wonders of our world. When it hit me – I wonder if there is any like, Egyptian-themed dungeon synth or ambient music. Remembering the interludes from Nile albums, I set to searching the internet, and was immediately…

Intense, dusty and archaic black metal from one of the guys involved in Morgue Tar (which is excellent by the way). I love how this thing juxtaposes between lengthy keyboard pieces (not in the Cradle Of Filth way, these compositions feel more in line with horror movies and are buried behind a million layers of dust) and intense, raw black metal. Things aren’t “raw” to the point of being unlistenable or becoming the dreaded wasps-in-a-jar…

Ah, Crypt Of The Wizard. It is of course probably typical for something as nerdy as “Dark Dungeon Music” or dungeon synth to have such a complicated history. Folk will often mistake this for an album, but Crypt Of The Wizard is a compilation of a series of 12″s released by Mortiis over 1996 and 1997. Despite the LP format, these 12″s contained much more short-form style tracks than what Mortiis was known for at…

This is one of those cases where the record sounds like it was recorded in the early 90s, rather than in 2020, year of the ‘VID. Sunken Grove then, obviously have the classic DS vibe pinned down. In a similar vein, the compositions are not intricately involved, instead forming and morphing from simple yet pure satisfying melodic progressions, lapping over in a meditative state. There is a layer of darkness here too, but it is…

I was a huge fan of others works by this project but Vid Himinsenda fell to the side somewhat. I listened to them both for the first time in the summer of the 2020 lockdown, but whilst Fjällets Gyllene Slott stayed with me, this was lost on me a bit. Everything sounds great, but its a bit derivative and plodding in parts, playing into the safe area of dungeon synth that basically just rips off…

I was thinking recently on the mystery of Revenant Marquis and I went over to Spotify to see if any of the records were there and what do you know, turns out the project has a new(ish) release that I haven’t heard yet! Eagerly excited for more muffled kvlt metal that I can’t make head or tail of due to the extra rubbish production, I instead was met with a very invocative series of atmospheric…

A beautifully composed album from the mid-90s, led by Satyricon’s Satyr Wongraven (I guess this dude loves naming bands after himself, huh?). Discogs credits Norwegian percussionist Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen as having contributed to this record, as well as Ihsahn from Emperor, but for the most part, this is a solo outing. What we get is a solid 30 minutes or so of excellent ambient / dungeon synth music (before the term really existed, remember) that…

I downloaded a bunch of Nargaroth records 7 years ago when they were coming to my town so it’s probably a good idea if I actually listen to them. Spectral Visions… is as much introspective electronic music as it is dingy black metal. When the metal does flow, the songs are slow and atmospheric. Personally, I prefer the electronic passages here, which come across like a techno version of Tangerine Dream drowning in dusty dungeon…

Another excellent band/project I have had the pleasure of recently unearthing, Offermose offer the most (lol) stunning mixture of Tangerine Dream style Berlin School synth meandering, punctuated with vibes and call backs to the dungeon synth movement of the 90s, with shimmering, moving passages and spooky, almost black metal style vocals. Stilhedens Tårn presents a cold and morose atmosphere, but one that is peaceful and beautiful in its own way. One in which you can…

Gorgeously spooky, amazing, fantastically composed old school dungeon synth from 1997. Coming across like a mix between the instrumentals you’d get on early Cradle Of Filth records and something altogether more Age Of Empires II, Mordenheim is a stunning journey through synthesised orchestration. I find it wholly bizarre that this (and the following Grabesmond record) were never released on cassette. This stuff belongs on an analogue format. Brilliant.

I’ve started a bit randomly here, coming in at number 5 of (so far) 6 dungeon synth records by the beautiful Darken Wood. Honestly, the first thing that springs to mind several minutes after letting V unfold is memories of exploring both the Imperial lands of Cyrodiil in TES IV: Oblivion and traversing the wilderness in TES II: Daggerfall. That’s what I love about good dungeon synth, is the ability for it to take you…

Book Of Lore is a massive undertaking, so much so that I originally had this marked down to review on 2nd March 2020, not long before the pandemic changed everything. I have listened to it twice since then, and can confirm that it’s a hefty listen, but probably great if you are into role playing or D&D and want a good soundtrack for those activities. For those of an Elder Scrolls persuasion, one may notice…

I love it when you find something that you have never heard before. Yes, I’ve heard Lunar Womb before, but hear me out. The blend of styles on this record are incredibly perplexing. Think dungeon synth mixed with vaporwave. Both are fairly obscure electronic subgenres with little crossover (the runescape.wav (sp?) project the only outlier I can think of), but their unintentional mixture on this 25 year old demo is perplexing and thought provoking. Vaporwave…

This is some prime-rib old school dungeon synth from the mid 90s. I love uncovering gems like this. Lots of anxious synths and sparse yet martial drum programming keep things from becoming too dreamy, but La Lune Noire still has its own unique and misty atmosphere. Fantastic. A great find.

Dark, mysterious, atmospheric; three words you would likely associate with the dungeon synth genre. Pafund is no different, with The Grim Abbot leaning more on the atmospheric end of proceedings. The tracks are loose and dense with ambience and conjure distant misty worlds. Cracking.

An interesting take on the dungeon synth formula. Admittedly not one that I would usually be all over, but I appreciate the artistic integrity and boldness involved nonetheless. The guy, Jon, seems to do a bunch of stuff across a ton of genres, a lot within the vaporwave kinda style.

This kinda shits all over my own Welsh dungeon synth project. Haha! Mari Lwyd lays down some serious tunes, obviously composed with genuine musical skill and chops. There’s a lot of dungeon synth that isn’t as musical per se but atmospheric, Y Ddraig Goch (I wanna guess ‘the red dragon?) is absolutely on the musical end, with a record full of dense instrumentation and excellent songs. Highly recommended. Tape is, unfortunately, long sold out.

I think it would be wrong to say that Fief is head and shoulders above other modern dungeon synth projects, but the name does bring with it its own kinda unique sound, which gives weight to the name. There is a… musicality (for severe lack of a better word) to II that is absent from a lot of sparser, more ambient DS projects. Its lovely. Perfect RPG music.

Gnolls! Those dirty bastards! One has conspired here to make a dungeon synth record, it seems. Leaning towards the video game / RPG worlds of inspiration rather than lore / history etc., Gnoll ticks two boxes: one for awesome dungeon synth and one for invoking some sort of analogue nostalgia from a better time.

One of the most revered dungeon synth releases of recent times and with good reason. There is something magical about these lo-fi recordings; a wonderful sense of adventure as it were, along with heaps of character. This has recently been re-recorded, so I’m interested to see why, as this release isn’t that old, nor can I find any fault with it. I’ve been putting this off since Feb 2020 (lol) but the recent rerecording of…

Another absolute classic from Jim Kirkwood, this time from way back in 1992. Unsure if it’s just me but this one seems a bit darker and moodier than usual. Don’t get me wrong, Jim can always conjure infinite fantasy landscapes with all manner of vibes and feels, but there’s something oppressive about this offering. One of my favs so far.

I got sent a link to this and couldn’t decipher whether or not it’s a meme. But, either way, there is something in the undercurrent of Curse Of The Lock Master which is endearing. It appeals to that part of me that loves wobbly cassettes and shitty demos from the 90s, and so on. I’m unsure what to make of the project as a whole, but I’d be lying to you if I said I…

This is a massive release, with around 90 minutes of epic dungeon synth fantasy music to take you off to far away lands. Originally this was dropped as 2 separate albums (volume one and two), but has been released together on physical formats such as CD and cassette. I was sold the minute I saw the name Quest Master, and had to check it out. Really good compositions, it’s a high rating from me.

Uilos is an interesting project. It is dungeon synth to its core, but with the added element of guitar playing thrown into the mix too. Sounds simple no? It probably is, and I’m a cretin. Nevertheless, this is a fantastic full length and there are some truly haunting and mesmerising tracks on it. Hey, if it makes me wanna dig out TES III: Morrowind then that can only be a good thing.

I couldn’t think of a better name for this myself: these are Barbaric Visions indeed. Moody, dark, drab, damp, echoic – these are the words which come to mind when thinking back to this dismal and sombre split record. Both Shadow Dungeon and Forest Temple bring their own unique darkness to proceedings. A great split.

Got recommended this as an example of a dungeon synth subgenre that I hadn’t previously come across. Introducing the frankly ridiculous sounding ‘dinosynth’ (hey, its not as shit as comfy synth at least). Diplodocus however, plays very stimulating classic DS-like compositions, with obligatory dinosaur-related sampling. All in all, its a pretty solid synthesizer record.

Ah, such woe, such wistfulness! If you’re in the mood for slapping your headphones on and losing yourself in a journey, then I would recommend this record. Great stuff.

This bizarre project has been on my to-do list for a very long time. Today I finally listened, and was taken away on a wonderful musical experience. Chanelling aspects of both dungeon synth and vaporwave (my favourite niche electronic subgenres no less) and filtering them through the worship of an old RPG, we have some glorious low-key compositions that creep and crawl with the right amount of emotional leads over the top. Like, that sounds…

Light, sprightly (is that a word?) synthensizer music in the olde worlde / fantasy vein. I suppose you could call this dungeon synth, but this seems like more than that. I have Tolkien vibes, general high fantasy and massive worlds unfold as I lose myself in this lush music. Great stuff from Elixir!

Neptune Towers is super under-rated. Transmissions… is a stellar electronic composition, heralding styles all the way from dungeon synth to something in the peak-period of Tangerine Dream’s synthesizer output. Its a mesmerising listen, and one of great enjoyment.

Dusty, hiss-filled dungeon synth compositions of lost lands and endless dark imaginations. Like, this is so fucking good its not even funny. Some of the vocal performances on the latter track(s) leave a little to be desired, but this a golden gem of dark dungeon music.

Its hard to embody the spirit of the early Mortiis releases without completely ripping them off. This is done with varying degrees of success, but Elffor’s Dra Sad III, my first encounter with the project, manages to weave the vibes of those early 90s dungeon synth masterpieces into tapestries of their own. Dra Sad III, with the full title of Beneath The Uplands Of Doom, evoke longform, dense ambient soundscapes, with the right balance of…

Jim Kirkwood is something of a father to the dungeon synth world. His compositions bridge the gap between electronic soundtrack music and even – dare I say the buzz word – Berlin school kinda synth fuckery, but its the Tolkien inspired backdrop to these fantastical compositions that really is the icing on the cake. Middle Earth is a long album. I took it out with me and walked a few miles with my dog, burnt…

This is… different. I appreciate the sentiment and meaning behind it, but after two tracks I’m sick to death of it. Dungeon synth or any fantasy based electronic music is niche enough as it is, at this point it seems almost like a joke to narrow it down to “comfy” RPG interior music. I’m sure there’s an audience for this, but I’m not in that audience.

Mythic Dawn is a small single from Burzum that showcases the man’s skill at the synthesizer style of music. Honestly, outsiding of existing Burzum fans, there is nothing of value here, its super and short and to the point, kind of acting a sampler to what we would get in the very later extremes of the project’s life.

The Sleeping Green is a “lost” Lunar Womb release from back in the 90s. There’s not much to say except that this is a stunning collection of synthesiser compositions. Lunar Womb excels in the dungeon synth style, but the music is much more one with nature than it is with some made up dungeon full of goblins. I enjoyed.

Spooky, authentically exotic ambient music from this well constructed side project. I recently played the Daggerfall OST through and honestly some parts are eerily similar. All in all though, if you like your synthesizer soundscapes to have an ominous Eastern lean to them, I would heavily recommend you Call To The Deep.

Now this is what dungeon synth is all about, if you ask me. Maybe the warbling audio hiss of the tape rip has got me all nostalgic and teary eyed, but Eternal Fear’s 1995 offering is a beautiful journey through misty mountains and unknown chasms. Shit, any dungeon synth that makes me wanna break out Daggerfall is good in my books. Also, its an absolute pleasure to find OG 90s work that I haven’t heard…

There is often a thin line between black metal and dungeon synth, but None manages to blur that line even further. Imagine the dense atmospheres of the synth worlds, but driven by drums and harsh vocals. Life is definitely damp and chilly, especially for a Welshman such as myself, at this time of the year, but None step things up a notch even more so.

Those that know me in person surely no doubt know my undying love for the worlds of the Elder Scrolls, in particular parts 2 and 3, Daggerfall and Morrowind. The creative community around these game worlds is alive and kicking today, and Tamriel Rebuilt is a 18 year old mod (yes) that still continues to add swathes of new lands and adventures into TES III: Morrowind, arguably the best open world RPG in its vanilla…

This was an interesting listen. I’m just going to throw it out there now so its out of the way: I absolutely prefer the original versions. Now I can get to the music recorded for this album without constantly harking back. There are two new ingredients here – pomp and percussion. LOL. Some of these previously dreamy compositions are now bombastic stompers, with marching drums and fuller instrumentation. Honestly though, Spirit Of Rebellion sounds absolutely…