Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts.
Dungeon synth is often misunderstood. Or, more accurately, the music’s appeal is muted as discussions about its merits as a genre circle around how it builds communities, how tight-knit it is, how friendly the artists are and how permeable the layer between artist and enthusiast is. Else, they praise the aesthetics; the castles, the forests, the cozy mice (though this one is contentious), and the like. These are all appealing but they fail to get into the meat of the music itself, poking its tendrils but not stabbing at its core.
Often, I describe dungeon synth as being anti-ambient music even though in many cases, it’s not dissimilar. Ambient music transports you from your current destination. It’s “as ignorable as it is interesting,” as Eno put it. Conversely, dungeon synth transports you to a specific destination. The former drops you in purgatory and asks you to bask in the emptiness. Dungeon synth, even albums that edge into ambient territory like Aindulmedir’s The Lunar Lexicon, is prescriptive and descriptive. It draws a map and tells you how to navigate it. While these vistas may not be concrete, ranging from the ethereal realms nascent to Depressive Silence or the detailed and orchestral Faydark, they are all defined.
Scene setting attracts those already interested in dungeon synth-adjacent aesthetics, be they fantastical, depressive, or spooky (particularly relevant to this month), though that’s only half the appeal, to me at least. The genre reflects class, access, and DIY nature in a manner distant to other underground music styles. Think of punk music, curtailing the above mentioned into a raucous rebellion. Dungeon synth rebels, not by engaging with the zeitgeist, but by offering a crystal ball visage of another world. That’s the transportative elements again, but dungeon synth remains tethered to real world limitations through its connections with black metal and the latter’s low-fidelity artistry. In scouring for the ghost in the machine by opting for analog and, oftentimes, subpar recording methods, black metal can reflect a working class reality of access (note that CAN is the operative term here as not all black metal does this and many of its most stringent devotees have no interest in class and actively search for higher quality production that’s beyond a working class budget). Tight spending limits don’t beget fancy studio equipment, simply put. Dungeon synth widely cherishes that austerity, hemming to those archaic and fuzzy recordings for atmosphere and economics.
Of course, generalizing dungeon synth as uniformly low-fidelity is myopic. Feif’s VII is polished to a point that it could be presented in a regal court, as is Quest Master’s arcade-ready excellence. What’s more common in dungeon synth is the lack of formal groups. Dungeon synth artists are majorly solo projects. A duo may come together occasionally, like Mors Vitaque or, again, Depressive Silence. But the large and small names, the Mortiis’ and Erangs, the latter of whom assembled a compilation record with said large and small names, are individual artists. Because of this, there’s more freedom to pursue one’s selfish desires, release an album nearly every month, compose small smattering of mood pieces rather than songs, or base an entire discography around Runescape. The solitary goals are welcomed and dungeon synth, weird and unhurried as it is, has all the liberty it needs to chase them.
Musically speaking, dungeon synth makes no attempts to be commercially viable or even available to an algorithm. Take a dungeon synth track out of context and post it in your Instagram reel; it’ll lose potency quickly. It’s an aromatic genre that requires full context. In the same way that a postcard cannot encapsulate a country, a 30-second snippet cannot fathom touching all the splendor or doom in the portrayed lands. The song must be heard in full, and often must be part of a movement to ring true. Add that to the by-and-large lack of vocals and standard percussion and traditional hooks, and the music evades the ability to garner capital outside of those already invested in it. It’s also not “cool,” no matter how hard you argue that Earthsea is actually “hip” because “fantasy is in.” This shit is too dorky even for MCU fans.
Given all this, dungeon synth becomes a proletariat refuge that explores the personal fantasies deemed unfit elsewhere. It’s music to exist in as an observer, not to attribute to yourself, another fashion in which it inverts punk rock. Dungeon synth is patient whereas punk is volatile. Punk lashed out against the concept of musical merit in favor of personal expression. Dungeon synth posits that one’s visions needn’t be encumbered. They can exist, and they can be rudimentary.
If I had it my way, I’d listen to dungeon synth all October long, but unfortunately for me, good metal kept coming out this month. Here are the albums that kept myself and Langdon away from the dungeons.
– Colin Dempsey