Afar Angathfark

Arch Summoning impersonators Emyn Muil return with their third full length ‘Afar Angathfark’. Unlike other projects that borrow liberally from the Austrian masters of Tolkien metal, Emyn Muil seem intent on making music completely indistinguishable from them. It raises many interesting questions about the nature of imitation; namely how a near perfect imitation could affect the metrics we use to judge quality. Can we critique a project like Emyn Muil without mentioning Summoning (a prima facie impossibility)? Is there anything to be gained from that? The unavoidable fact is that this is no cheap rip off. There is craft, care, and imagination applied to these tracks, as with every Emyn Muil album. But listening to it with foreknowledge of the kind of music we can expect from this project, one cannot help but wonder what the intention was, and second guessing said intention leads to a distracting listen to say the least. The short answer to the riddle of Emyn Muil is that for those after some extra Summoning material, there’s now three quality albums right here to tuck into. The longer answer is spun out in the ramblings below, because the history of Emyn Muil is rooted in the history of Summoning.

Firstly, ‘Lugburz’ (1995) the outlier aside, it’s important to distinguish two facets to the Summoning formula. One is defined by (but not limited to) the earlier efforts ‘Minus Morgul’ (1995), ‘Dol Guldor’ (1997), and ‘Nightshade Forests’ (1997). The keyboards are cheaper, the mix a bit rougher, it’s technically clunkier. But transcending these limitations they crafted a whole new approach to black metal as a new form of program music, making Tolkien’s world the ideal backdrop to this. Simple cyclical melodies were layered on top of one another, articulated increasingly through keyboards, with guitars merely providing texture. Drums were defined by a militaristic tribalism of sorts; as ponderous, slow rhythms centred around the toms and snare, with only the most minimal cymbals coming into play. Vocals stuck to the black metal framework. Everything sounded cheap, from the keyboard patches to the drums to the samples, but this only added to the character. Much like Tolkien’s work themselves, a unique and entirely modern form of folk expression was coming to life, an approach and influence that went well beyond the music itself.

The break with this formula began from ‘Stronghold’ (1999) onwards, although ‘Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame’ (2001) saw them take a more commercial approach to the older format. In fact these two albums always felt out of order in the discography, with later releases returning to the atmospheric, ethereal direction of ‘Stronghold’ and shedding the bombastic confidence of LMHSYF. Setting aside this glitch in the matrix, after 2001, the approach became fluid, dynamic, the keyboards defined more by layers than cycles, clean vocals became a regular feature; it behaved more like one’s idea of what a traditional fantasy score should sound like. ‘Oath Bound’ (2006) and ‘Old Morning’s Dawn’ (2013) typified this approach. But in attempting to modernise the production values, the unique charm to this music was lost. ‘Oath Bound’ may have succeeded regardless as the power of Summoning’s melodic sensibilities and storytelling through music shined through regardless. But it was an attempt from Summoning to be something they were not: a soundtrack to a narrative, and not the narrative itself. Older Summoning, for all its technical shortcomings, existed for its own sake and beyond its own ontological limitations. Later these limitations were shed, but the philosophical aspirations suffered as a result. However, enough of that, we’ll save it for the book of Summoning lore that I’ll definitely get around to writing.

Emyn Muil up to this point have drawn on the second era of Summoning outlined above. But on their latest offering ‘Afar Angathfark’ they take a much wider survey of their Austrian forebear’s career, calling all the way back to ‘Minus Morgul’ for inspiration; and the lengthy runtime reflects this wider scope. ‘Old Morning’s Dawn’ is probably the most prevalent influence; not least on the spoken word finale to ‘Noldomire’ (seriously, is that the same bloke). But more fundamentally in the way the keyboards – through subtle organ and string tones – flow with the pulse of the drums as opposed to providing sharp, staccato melodies that cut across the graceful tom rolls. They essentially take up the post of rhythm guitar, leaving the guitars themselves to do what keyboards would normally do on atmospheric black metal, namely providing texture and depth. The track ‘Heading Eastward’ points to how LMHSYF began this morphing process, transitioning from old to new, with strings and guitars trading riffs as they are carried along by the marching drums. There are many other moments throughout ‘Afar Angathfark’ that mirror key moments in Summoning’s career in miniature, and illustrate how their sound has progressed over the years. The chief shortfall as far as Emyn Muil are concerned being a lack of forward direction. No clue or hint is offered as to where these ideas could be taken. This is a shortfall that both artists have in common however.

So in one sense, you could dismiss ‘Afar Angathfark’ as a competent survey of Summoning’s career, and nothing more to add. But there is more to be said in answer to the riddle of Emyn Muil. If one is to make an academic study of Summoning’s career – a worthy pursuit given their body of work and its unique standing in extreme metal – then Emyn Muil are a useful fount of secondary source material. This musician has clearly studied Summoning’s music closer than most, and become not so much a tribute act as an alternative timeline. But as expanded on above, the Summoning “sound” is not a static object to draw ideas from, it has developed, changed, and grown over time. It’s a living object. Emyn Muil, in taking a broader survey of their career, are able illuminate important moments in this timeline, the factors that defined their style at certain points, and in doing so elucidate on the heart of this simple yet endlessly complex sonic mythology. Even taken on its own then, Emyn Muil are at least academically valuable. But artistically, it has not yet found (or even shown signs of wanting to find) the next step forward. Musical ideas, like any other ideas, grow and change as they possess people, infectious ideas become movements, movements become establishments, establishments become part of history, history becomes a body of traditions. ‘Afar Angathfark’ is an analysis of an idea, but it offers no path to turning this idea into a movement.

Originally published at Hate Meditations