OLDE THRONE

 IN THE LAND OF GHOSTS (2023)

Segunda entrega para esta one man band neozelandesa, que cuenta con Quentin Forster a la batería para este álbum, ofreciendo un sonido mucho más maduro que en su álbum predecesor, al mismo tiempo que sigue inspirándose en historias de las Isla Británicas para ilustrar sus letras. Un álbum que arremete con dos elementos característicos, por un lado el buen trabajo de Quentin a la batería que se muestra intratable en muchas facetas, contundente cunado es necesario y precisa cunado la música se adentra por pasajes más lentos ofreciendo el sustento para que el otro elemento a tener en cuenta, las guitarras, se puedan adentrar por terrenos más atmosféricos dejando de lado las secciones de riffs crudos y fríos presentes en las partes más directas y rápidas de su música. El binomio batería-guitarra se muestra infranqueable ofreciendo una propuesta directa, agresiva, cruda y sin fisuras, capaz también de adentrarse por pasajes más lentos en donde se recrea una atmósfera más de tintes medievales. A todo ellos tenemos que añadir elementos de procedencia folk, fruto del sonido de acordeón, flauta o gaita que aparecen como arreglos en algunos temas, acentuando un carácter pagano en el resultado final del álbum. Las voces se parapetan detrás de un estilo gélido, repleto de gruñidos de ultratumba, desencadenando el caos y planteando un fuerte contraste con todo lo que tenga que ver con algo parecido a la melodía que pude trascender del plano musical. Decíamos antes que la música busca su inspiración en las Isla Británicas, más concretamente este álbum se centra en leyendas de tradición oral, destacable es el perfecto ambiente que logra recrear Olde Throne para que estas leyenda cobren vida en forma de un sonido de black conciso, bien ambientado y que muchas veces recuerda a los clásicos de los noventa. (7,7).

Naturmacht Productions

1. House of Dun 07:17

 Oh pale lady,

Of the house called Dun

Woeful spirit

Who walks alone

In cold damp earth

Her bones remain

A restless soul

Absent of name

Oh lost harpist

Of stolen song

In the cold of night

Hear his great harp cry

To those who hear

These songs of woe

Be not with fear

Soon he shall go

You’re never alone

Within these walls

In darkness they roam

This house is their home

Beware the horseman

Who roams these roads

The vengeful spirit

Of the House of Dun 

2. Skara Brae 05:19  

Upon the shores

Of the ancient world

Beyond the ring

In the land of ghosts

The old ones call through time

Under silver stars I hear them call

From lands of myth and kingdoms of stone

For five thousand years they called this home

From times forgotten

And lands untamed

From a bygone world

Their souls remain

By the stones I wait

To hear the old ones speak

Hear the wise ones call

From an ancient world

See the stars

Which they too have seen

Hear their voices

And heed the call

For someday soon

They’ll call you home

3. Isobel 07:02

  In the square

They build a pyre

Blackened smoke

Starts to rise

Two hundred thousand women

Sentenced to death

For the crime of being sentient

Doomed by evil men

Isobel

Queen of witches

Your fire burns

Beneath the moon

Black sermons in the kirk

Speaking with the spirits

From human body she transformed

Murdering the men of God

Of these crimes she did confess

And she was never seen again

From the mercy of our god

We sentence you to death

For the saviour of mankind

We burn you at the stake

Two hundred thousand women

Raped and put to death

For fear of magical masses

In the kingdom of God

4. Cliffs of Culzean 06:09

Beneath these walls Down in the caves Be ghosts and ghouls Who haunt Culzean The piper plays To prove this false On sea swept shore In the howling wind He makes his way Into the caves And the caves soon echo With the piper’s song But as the night falls And the mist comes rolling in The piper’s song Begins to fade And through the years His song still plays From the ground below On Piper’s Brae 

5. The Curse of Alloa Tower 01:22

The alleged curse of Alloa Tower placed upon John Erskine, the 17th Earl of Mar, as read by the Abbot of Cambuskenneth:

"Proud Chief o' Mar, thou shalt be raised still higher, until thou sittest in the palace the palace of the king. Thou shalt rule and destroy, and thy work shall be after thy name... Thy work shall be cursed and shall never be finished....

Then, when thou seemest to be highest, when thy power is mightiest, then shall come thy fall; low shall be thy head amongst the noblest of the people.

Deep shall be thy moans among the children of dool.

Thy lands shall be given unto the stranger, and thy titles shall lie among the dead... Thou, proud head and daggered hand, must dree thy weird, until horses be stabled in thy hall, and a weaver shall throw his shuttle in thy chamber of state..."

6. Duntulm 04:43   

Duntulm,

A ruin,

Above the sea,

On crumbling cliff

Hugh MacDonald,

Of dark ambition,

Cast to the cells,

Starved to death

From the depths below,

Hear his wails and groans,

In his dungeon tomb,

Where he met his doom

Nursemaid,

Of forgotten name,

Did you know your fate,

When you dropped that bairn

Two lives lost,

From that grave mistake,

Hear their hallowed cries,

Through the castle wind

7. Greyfriars Kirkyard 06:48

   Oh, Greyfriars,

Where the Covenanters lay,

Ceased by the black judge,

Cut down by his hand,

A dream of freedom,

To practice what they please,

Doomed by the wicked,

Condemned to brutal fate

And there he lies,

In the black mausoleum,

Awoken by a man,

In need of shelter,

An unhinged evil,

Released upon this earth,

Cold black spirit,

That vengeful entity of hate

Darkness looms,

Upon Greyfriars,

A man turned demon,

An evil unchained

An untold sorrow,

Haunts this place,

Their lives were lived,

While awaiting death

A place where hope,

Has never shined,

They are not gone,

They never died

8. Killiecrankie 05:02

  Upon the great pass

Down in the weeping glen

The battle stays and soldiers remain

We had our chance,

for victory or death

We charged forth, and saw the soldiers leap

And they fell

Among the dead

And every year the battle plays

Over and over again

We fight

And history won’t know,

But the wind will remember my name

9. An Torr 04:29

Out from the cold, Welcomed into our home, We saw that they were fed, But soon we would be dead Cold, the wind in the pine, Cast out with nowhere to go, The heart of the earth's turned stone, There's blood in the River Coe Put all to the sword Out from the night, We offered our homestead, Some fled through the snow, While some, cut down in their beds, * "Cruel is the snow that sweeps Glencoe, And covers the grave O' Donald, Cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe, And murdered the house O' MacDonald"  

  48:11

Escumergamënt ‎– .​.​.​Ni Degu Fazentz Escumergamënt E Mesorga​.​.​. 23,99 €

First regular edition 12" LP, black vinyl, single jacket, and printed inner sleeve.

OLDE THRONE

 

Origen: Nueva Zelanda, Christchurch

Formados: ?

Estilo: Black atmosférico

Temática: Historia de Escocia e Irlanda y mitología celta

Enlaces: Bandcamp, deezer, facebook, instagram, spotify y youtube

Miembros:

• Harrison McKenzie Bajo, guitarra y voces
• Quentin Forster Batería

Discografía:

• An Torr Demo 2021  
• Something in the Way Single 2021  
• An Gorta Mór, Pt. I Single 2022  
• An Gorta Mór CD 2022
• Greyfriars Kirkyard Single 2023  
• Isobel Single 2023  
• In the Land of Ghosts CD 2023
• Cearwylm & Misneachd Split 2024

AN GORTA MÓR (2022)

Interesante primer larga duración para esta one man band neozelandesa que pone en escena un black de corte atmosférico, con un estilo frío y oscuro sin enrevesamientos innecesarios. Harrison se las arregla para crear un sonido abrasivo muchas veces, que tiene como punto de partida las sencillez de su propuesta, sencillez que se muestra en los riffs crudos y precisos, en una batería a veces poderosa que se muestra dinámica cuando la ocasión lo precisa, unas voces crudas y abrasivas y ciertos arreglos, digamos que de corte ambient y folk que van salpicando las composiciones a modo de nexo entre las mismas. El resultado es un álbum que abarca muchas facetas y planos pero que logra al mismo tiempo sonar conciso y concreto, con un estilo que lo acerca a bandas consagradas del género, aunque Harrison se sirve por un lado en lograr un sonido que podemos calificar como clásico en cuanto a influencias, en una dicotomía entre un primitivo black metal y la crudeza presente en las composiciones, partiendo todo ello desde la sencillez de un riffs que funciona como hilo conductor a lo largo de cada tema, el cual se ve rodeado tanto de una ambientación y atmósfera heladora, aspectos que se ven acentuados por el trabajo vocal, que se adentra casi que de forma abrasiva en terrenos oscuros, ofreciendo un tono justo y correcto en el apartado de batería que trabaja aspectos más sombríos pero necesarios para dar coexistencia al conjunto, sin olvidarnos por supuesto de los arreglos de guitaras limpias o sonidos folk que logran que el álbum a pesar de tener procedencia neozelandesa, logre sumergirnos en las profundidades de el paganismo y misticismo celta. (7,6)

Naturmacht Productions

1. An Gorta Mór (Part I) 04:41

The darkest hour, where fields reap blight The endless hunger, and blackened skies A land of rot, where children wither And mother’s weep, a countless sorrow Hearts grow faint And hope decays The failure of a God The plough drags on the bones of the fallen, The blood seeps to the soil of poison. Scorned wretches of what used to be human, Pale faces in a shroud of torment. A vulgar curse, on blackened shores A time for death, to claim what’s hers Diseased and starved, a brewing corpse Left for dead, on farms of ash The stench of decay Abandoning faith Hunger spreads to the edge of the isle, Disease rampant and the rations vile. Walking corpses their souls are abandoned, By a god that leaves children in famine. The island rots while the people starve, The crows feast on the Holocaust of celts. Ashes fall on the hopeless soil, Removing families from this mortal coil.

2. Knockdoe 03:31

   Knockdoe!

The slaughter field

A bloodied sky

Where Gaels die

Upon the hill

The hill of axes

Armies stand

United clans

Gallowglass

Axe in hand

Charging forth

Through arrow’s rain

Armies clash

Hellish screams

Tearing flesh

Countless death

Now the cairns are stacked

High upon the hill

Now the land has changed

Gone the gaelic age

Now the old ways die

And gods fall the heel

Now the days turn grey

Gone the way of celts

3. Children of Lir 05:52

Upon the lake Under light of moon The swans sing Songs of great sorrow Restless they wait For the curse to end Innocent Condemned to exile Cast out On their own With no place To call home Cursed hand The witch had played 900 years Doomed to wait As the nights Grow more cold Still they roam With hope they shiver With human voice They wail at night Through lonely centuries All friends have died Discarded Left to roam The lonely lands Year after year Wandering With no return To the hall of gods Til the bell is rung And in the end A new god comes To the Celtic lands And the old gods fall Baptised By a holy man They return to form Withered they die

4. Connla’s Fate 08:08

Connla, child of Cuchulain

Born to Aoife, of beauty and steel

Spawned from battle, his cruel fate awaits

From the land of Gods,

Connla made haste.

Down to Ulster,

Where his father awaits.

Cursed with gaesa, three which were laid

When his journey begins, never shall he return

No challenge shall be refused, to no man shall he give his true name

When connla refused

To give the king his name

Many warriors were sent

To force Connla’s hand

Cuchulain was called

To see to this young man

But still he refused

To give his true name

And so the spears were called

And mightily they clashed

But Connla gave way

And fell to his fate

So began

Cuchulain‘s great lament

He cursed Aoife’s name

And went to the waves

The Ulster men were called

To say their farewells

And Connla was laid to rest

Killed by his father’s hand

5. A Dying Land 05:53

There is a fading light Upon the valleys and rivers A whisper of hope A desperate plea of life Beneath a falling sky Upon great mountains of old A soil of rot And a land of blight Cut down in the land we call home Starved and left to die here alone Hunger thrives in the absence of hope Death waits upon these shores - A dying land There is an absence of life And the gravestones grow Farmers reap empty fields And only the crows feast Even kings rot on their thrones And many sleep to never awake Kingdoms fall to the will of dirt Nature brings all to heel - A dying land This is our home We die alone The sun turns black And the fields don’t grow - A dying land   

6. Celtic Sorrow 04:32

  Never ends

The tales of loss

Always still

Death is near

Kingdoms grow

Then fall to dust

Sweeping snow

Beats on stone

And still it holds

The endless sorrow

I lie in wait

For the pain to end

I scour the fields

Where my kin lay dead

I watch the stars

And see them fade

I roam the forest

And speak with ghosts

How celts have suffered

And known no less

In the black of night

Even sirens cry

In the halls of kings

Our heroes rest

Upon shadowed lands

The old ones roam

And still it holds

The promise of death

And all they know

Celtic sorrow

7. An Gorta Mór (Part II) 06:40

Still it lingers, the stench of famine And the sorrow of celts remains A land in ruin, cut down from the blight And the weight of guilt to have lived Ashamed of life, devoid of hope We walk alone on scattered bones Our fallen kin, with stolen souls Dead and nameless they lay an Gorta Mór Robbed of life A great unrest Buried by time an Gorta Mór A tainted land A world turned black In rotting fields an Gorta Mòr an Gorta Mòr  

  39:17

Darkspace ‎– Dark Space - I 19.99 €

Fully re-recorded demo from 2002. 2019 rerelease.

Embossed cover on front and back, gatefold, printed black inside, full black inner sleeve with label logo.