Runemagick, who have been around since 1990, are still an underground phenomenon and have never really made the leap into the ranks of bigger bands. However, they are all the more popular and respected among a devoted community of fans of doom-laden death metal sounds. Of course, the band's sound has undergone certain changes and differentiations over the decades. Their debut album “The Supreme Force of Eternity,” released on Century Media, was much more closely aligned with regular death metal sounds, which specifically means that the tempo presented there was considerably faster. However, many of the subsequent albums, although significantly slower in tempo, were often more death metal-oriented or maintained a balance between death metal and doom metal elements. However, the last four albums after the band's new beginning in 2017, including the 2018 album “Evoked from Abysmal Sleep,” lean even more heavily toward doom metal, particularly through the increased incorporation of atmospheric, tranquil elements.
So Runemagick has been featured here several times before. See here for the interview on the occasion of the 2018 album “Evoked from Abysmal Sleep” and here for the review of the cult EP “Last Skull of Humanity.”
Now, with “Circle of the Dying Sun (Dawn of Ashen Realms)”, the band's 14th studio album has recently been released. It once again transports the listener into a distant, abysmal world beyond mundane earthly matters – but to experience this, you need to take the time to immerse yourself in the soundscape of Runemagick. The songs, which are almost always excessively long, thrive on the interplay of tempos and moods. Skillfully interspersed breaks and ideas give the songs unexpected directions, ensuring that listening never becomes boring—a danger that is particularly prevalent with longer playing times, but one that Runemagick skillfully avoids. This time, Nicklas Rudolfsson wrote and recorded all the tracks himself; the only support he received came in the form of guest appearances by Lussidotter, Louvrianne Roux, Lin, and Disa Draugurinn, whose contributions noticeably change the album in places and make it even more interesting.
Particularly noteworthy are the album's stoic repetitiveness (the latter meant in no way negatively) and its sometimes meditative aura, which should be experienced, processed, and enjoyed in a quiet, secluded setting. Anyone who thinks he or she can quickly grasp the essence of this album by listening to it in parts is mistaken, and will not be able to access the very unique dark world that Runemagick has created here. At this point, I would like to mention in particular the second track, “Old Bones,” with its repetitive, beguiling mid-tempo parts that allow the listener's thoughts to wander before rougher sounds set in. But the slow, elegiac sounds in “The Hollow Chant of the Seer” also take the willing listener on a journey, if they are ready to embark on it. “The Runestone's Lament” is great doom death, a pitch-black, sad piece that, in addition to Rudolffson's death metal vocals, is also accompanied by female, quasi-counteracting, fantastic vocal lines.
Naturally, this is not music for the masses, and so, despite all their skill, Runemagick will unfortunately remain blocked from reaching a wider audience this time around, although artistic ambition and commercial success are often simply not compatible. Nevertheless, it is important to me to emphasize that I do not perceive or understand the album as a pitch-black, hopeless soundtrack to the apocalypse, to use metal clichés. Although the darkness typical of doom metal permeates the entire work, different moods, including lighter ones, are conveyed throughout the length of the individual songs and thus also of the album.
It should be noted that the LP version is missing the almost 11-minute-long “Spires of the Drowned Horizon” as well as two approximately two-minute-long tracks, which feature calm, atmospheric sounds and, in the case of “Embers of the Unwritten Dawn Part 1,” female vocals, while Part 2 consists exclusively of acoustic sounds. I would have liked to see these tracks included as interludes between the other songs, and in terms of time, there would have been enough space for them on the LP version. The LP version lasts just under 45 minutes, whereas the the digital version have a playing time of almost an hour and the CD version additional consists the demo version of an track called "Beneath the Solar Embers".
