There was an album from 2017 called Peasant by Richard Dawson (not the Family Feud host). It's a folk concept album where every song centers around a different story in medieval England. Villagers attacked by ogres and witches and stuff like that, accompanied by the appropriate musical accompaniments. It's exactly the kind of thing I'd normally scoff at, but it ended up being one of my favorite albums of that year for one major reason: I appreciate commitment.
For me, art isn't about good or bad. It's about effective or not-effective, and in the end, it doesn't really matter what you put in front of me. I just want to experience whatever it is as far as my emotional core will let me, so if you're going to make a medieval folk album, I want the most medieval ass medieval folk album possible, and goddamn if Richard Dawson doesn't deliver.
I know this isn't a goth album in terms of genre, but I would argue that it is one in terms of aesthetic, and on that realm, Within the Realm of a Dying Sun is the most goth shit ever and I ate it up.
A couple of people in the Album Club discord said that this album sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie that doesn't exist, and I think that's true. But specifically, it sounds like a very particular kind of horror movie. An '80s horror movie with teenage witches and bad vibes, and not one of the corny ones. I may feel this way because it's so rooted in certain '80s sounds that it probably can't have the same effect it had then as it does now, which is to say nothing of how much music I've heard that sounds just like this that's come out since. But still. The atmosphere of this album is so distinctly '80s horror goth you can almost feel the hairspray landing on your skin.
I should say something that feels like a conclusion here, but the only thing I really got left is that Lisa Gerrard's voice is stunning. She's the woman you've heard singing in many Hans Zimmer scores, and there's a reason she's earned that role is because her voice is as alien and haunting as you'd need without becoming a parody of itself.
And yeah, I loved the shit out of this and I'll be returning to it.
Favorite Songs: "Xavier," "Cantara," "Summoning of the Muse"
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