Grollheim — Ehrenfeld "Old Portraits Carved in Blood"
Ehrenfeld "Old Portraits Carved in Blood" is the first release from Chilean project Grollheim, who are part of the black metal/ dungeon synth collective the Valdivian Black Circle. The release is an extremely ltd tape/ digital download taking in seven examples of chillingly wonky dungeon synth fare- which from time to time adds in grimly ghoulish & bleakly unsettling vocal/ textured noise elements.
The cover artwork features a washed-out photocopied picture of a person in a witch's hat, cape, and nailed armbands holding up a wooden bat with long nails going through it. I can’t comment any further on the releases look, as I’m reviewing the digital copy. It can be checked out here.
Before getting into the review, I’ll have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of the dungeon synth genre- sure I enjoy bits and bobs, but largely the whole genre is a little predictable/ flat. So I was surprised how much I was grimly enchanted by Ehrenfeld "Old Portraits Carved in Blood"- though I’m not sure if you could solely label what we have here as common garden dungeon synth.
The release features in total of seven tracks- with each of these having runtimes between two and four minutes. We open with “Some Things Should Never Be Awaken”- here we find a blend of simple darting key runs, and more slow-simmering crawls. Over the top of this, we find whispered & hissed vocals- which more often than not are difficult to fully make out, so they really work as another sound. The synth is been fed through what sounds like a wavering pitch shift, and then recorded on a tiny/ slight malfunctioning/ reverbing tape record. It’s a great start to the release, and instead of reminding me of straight dungeon synth brought to mind the grimly grey & nighttime forest dark folk of someone like Splinterskin.
Moving on we have the spectral drifting organ/ synth purr meets guttural mumbling baying of “Is That Silhouette Crying on the Piano?”. There’s the wavering harmonic simmer of “Old Lanterns Haunting the Hallway”- which late adds in discordantly warbling pitch shifts, and the occasional creepy textural crunch/ drag- it all sounds like it’s been fed through an ancient reel to reel machine in a dank and sinister basement. With the release playing out with the descending and climbing reverbed key march of “Atmen Sie nicht den Kellerstaub ein...” which feels like at any moment it could suddenly unreel into ghoulish and lightly hissing silence.
In finishing Ehrenfeld "Old Portraits Carved in Blood" is a wonkily ghoulish opening release from Grollheim- which will be embraced by those who enjoy grimly warped and gloomily hazed atmospherics. Seemingly there is more Grollheim in the works later on this year, so it’ll be interesting to hear if it lives up to the great promise of this debut release.