THE NAZGÛL

Thanks to PsiFi we get to have this interesting piece of Atmospheric/Ambient Krautrock. It is an interesting work, and no doubt a great addition to anyone's collection that is interested in this style of work.

The music is somewhat rough, but that seems to be production because of the themes that are being worked with in the album. It focuses, as the band name denotes, on the darker themes of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The musicians attempt to create what they feel is the ambiance of the four places they named their songs after.

The music sounds as if it would be what one would hear in the locations the songs are named after. The first song seems to be a buildup, a crescendo of sorts, until a climax in which it seems like something collapsed. It may denote symbolically a collapse of the Tower, but I will try and refrain from speculating on the motives of the artists.

The rest of the three songs do the same thing (excepting the marked crescendo). They create the atmosphere and the ambiance of the area the song's title is. It does it very well, it seems as if it were written as part of a score for a video game where one would have to go through these places. The songs all have that feeling.

The songs also allow for one to relax to this album, they aren't overly pretentious in any way. They contain just the right amount that I think is needed for these songs. There are times in the songs where dissonances are used well, where certain themes are countered with another theme. For being so strait forward, it is rather dynamic in its composition and production.

I had no preconceived notions of what was in this album, and I had not seen this page's single one-star review. It is a good example of what could be done in this style in the mid seventies. It doesn't have the last 35 years of a more evolved Ambient/Atmospheric scene to take influence from yet it does well at creating the visions the artists wanted to create. It also may not be the first example of the Ambient/Atmospheric genre, but it was surprisingly good considering its obscurity.

It is a good addition to any collection of those that like this style of music or like things associated with the works of JRR Tolkien.