The IXth Key Unlocks "Rusty Chainmail" On Wrought Records
It’s that time again, friends. Check your inventory, equip yourself well, and come into the dungeon with me. Wrought Records has once again put a key into my hand and bid me a safe journey. So, let's light our torches and see what the IXth Key will unlock.
The IXth Key is a dungeon synth project from a prolific creator out of France. The project has seen twelve releases since May of 2019, including a split with the mighty Grimwin’s Forge, each with a specific flavor and concept. This project explores the varying themes of dungeon synth, boils those themes down to their essentials, and produces memorable, minimalist exercises with the bones that remain. This is one of the purest dungeon synth acts you’re likely to come across. On June 19th they unveiled Rusty Chainmail, the final release of their Era I material, and a fitting end as well.
This is the second IXth Key album to tread the halls of the dungeon-noise subgenre of dungeon synth, pioneered by artists like Tyrannus and Ranseur, but this one has a foot planted firmly in a more subdued, old-school approach. The cacophonous, distorted veneer is present, but the melodies and song structures are classic and familiar. There’s an immense gravity to these tracks. A creaking, lumbering sensibility. Each note hits hard and deliberate. Simplicity is also key. We are presented with four tracks, titled I-IV. The cover features only a stark, solid color, and a black, crude rendition of a chainmail coif. Track I carries a world-weary sorrow. There is a sound of glories past and of bitter remembrance. You can see the shape of this music as you listen, this ancient knight wreathed in rusted mail, sinking to the ground against a dungeon wall. Unlike the IXth Key’s earlier foray into dungeon noise, there are no more adventures, no more battles to be fought here. This is an album about ending. Track II brings to mind decay. It’s funereal tone and slow, mournful melody animate the procession of time, the skittering of mice, the crackle of torchlight as the body of our knight, defeated, returns to the earth. What we are left with is track III, perhaps the harshest track on the album. Hard-edged, coarse, and bleak. The rust has seized and the corpse within is locked away forever. Track IV, certainly my favorite on this record, bears a striking tonal comparison to the artist Hedge Wizard and is filled with a stoic resolve. This is the final song of our fallen hero as it echoes through empty dungeon halls. Only the stones know of the triumphs and failures now. At just under twelve minutes, this is a brief and emotional release that bricks up a wing of the IXth Key dungeon. Our torches still burn, though. There are still more doors that this key fits and with the recent live performances we’ve seen from this artist, a promise of even greater treasures await.
This gets 8/10 on the madness meter.
Pick up Rusty Chainmail on tape from Wrought Records and on digital from Secret Corridor Records on Bandcamp.
Wrought Records: https://wroughtrecords.bandcamp.com/
Secret Corridor: https://secretcorridor.bandcamp.com/
Read more within the Museum of Macabre Media on Monsters, Madness and Magic here: Crawl Before The Crypts of the Undead as Serpentis Commands Withered Flesh To Arise