If you're from the U.S., you're no doubt familiar with the concept of candy 'bites'. Just in case these aren't well-known in other countries, I'll just say they're essentially a version of an established candy, usually one that exists in bar form, condensed into small pieces you can shove into your mouth 10 at a time if you so desire. So instead of a Kit Kat bar, you can probably buy a bag of marble-sized Kit Kat bites. And that's essentially what Emyn Muil is. They have all the attributes you'd expect from a Summoning album but manage to cram a healthy amount of development into songs that tend to run about half as long as your average Summoning tune.

Any fan of the aforementioned Austrian duo's signature melange of film score orchestra-mimicking keyboards, lumbering, loud-as-thunder drum patterns, traditional black metal elements rendered ambient by being shoved into the background, and growlings about Tolkien's Middle Earth mythos will find plenty to like on Túrin Turambar Dagnir Glaurunga, the project's debut full-length. People who want all that stuff but find listening to those long Summoning pieces a bit taxing have a lot to be happy about here. Album closer 'Hail to the Black Sword', at roughly 8 minutes, is the only song on this album that could be considered lengthy. The others manage to bring that epic Summoning-esque vision of sprawling, grandiose fantasy worlds and epic battles to life in much smaller encapsulations that still have enough room to build quality songs.

While this album is mostly satisfying, Emyn Muil is definitely not at Summoning's level in terms of songwriting. Sole band member Saverio Giove provides strong atmosphere with a layer of black metal raging underneath but nothing stands out all that much. Each of Summoning's post-Lugburz albums have at least a few motifs you can recall after a first listen, musical ideas that rise above everything else and capture your attention, but Túrin Turambar doesn't. Some excellent, dramatic buildup in 'Arise in Gondolin', complete with an array of artificial horns and some elegant keyboard flourishes and this Orcish war chanting in 'Dark Riots of Angband' are among the album's best moments but even these don't have rhythms you'll get stuck in your head. You will probably remember the feel of these parts, and with an album like this, that's ultimately what matters even if a few genuinely memorable parts would have been appreciated.

This is one of those cases of a band having all the same surface elements as another but not quite succeeding in delivering a wealth of inspired moments. Even at its best, Túrin Turambar doesn't have quite as impressive a musical rendering of Tolkien's world but it's a nice alternative to Summoning, especially if you don't have the time or wherewithal to sit through the entirety of Minas Morgul.

I’m a card-carrying and enthusiastic supporter of Northern Silence Productions, with their trove of Summoning inspired bands – mostly of the one-man variety - who propel the warp and weft of Middle-earthean atmospheres into bold new heights.

Bands like Eternal Valley, Eldamar, Saor, Can Bardd, and Caladan Brood are responsible for creating some of the greatest epic albums of the last few years. What makes each of the said bands outstanding is that they have their own particular style and slant; they have their own identity. Eternal Valley involve heavy guitars and a doom feel, Eldamar utilise keyboard female vocals as melodies, Saor incorporate Scottish musical motifs etc. They are all essentially born out of the Summoning birth canal, but they are their own entities, with specific character and personality. My reviews of them have been glowing – all 90% plus scores.

Italian project Emyn Muil, however, sound like an exact carbon copy of their lords and masters in Summoning. Not just a little bit like Summoning – they sound exactly like Summoning. I’m certain that they use the exact same samples and programming that Summoning use, with the militaristic computer drums, synth keyboards, guitars playing second fiddle to the programming, and a variety mid-range vocal howling. If someone told me this was the new Summoning album, I would believe them.

Named after a mountain range in Middle-earth, everything is Tolkien-themed, from the lyrics to the artwork. The degree of Tolkien knowledge never ceases to amaze me with these projects, and Emyn Muil are no exception. To listen to this album is to enter into the world wholesale.

This raises several problems for a reviewer. On the one hand, the music here is generally excellent. The songs are long, epic, atmospheric and beautifully crafted. There aren’t the powerful hooks and movements that would elevate this album to outstanding status, but what is here is solid emotive music. Yet on the other hand, and without meaning to be rude, it’s a complete rip-off. An utter scam. I can’t remember really ever hearing a band sound so similar to their idols in nearly every way. Every single sound on this release, perhaps with the exception of the airy outro, has been specifically designed to sound like Summoning. Listen to the start of 'Ar-Pharazon' - those keyboards... it's Summoning! Listen to those drums, and that Nazgul howl. Summoning!

I think I’ve over-egged that particular pudding, so I’ll instead talk about why it’s still a good release. The layering of the musical elements is simply beautiful. The mixing is fantastic. The album begins with the sound of waves and a synth, complementing the album artwork that shows a boat on a stylised Tolkienesque sea. The orc-march drums come in, and some male narration joins a slow piping melody. It’s a very effective mood-setter. The highlight of the album is the 14 minute epic ‘The Lay of Numenore’, which is a fantastic cinematic and transformative listening experience, with its clip-clop verses and quick-march energy. There are some (real) female vocals here and there across the album, which add some elfin charm and subtlety.

Album artwork is excellent, with the booklet containing a map, lyrics and old school Tolkien-style drawings. It’s a brilliant overall package and no detail has been spared. At 41 minutes, the album is quite short for this particular genre, but as these are essentially Summoning songs anyway, it’s not a problem as Summoning have plenty of albums to listen to once this one stops.

I'm going to stop short at suggesting that Summoning fans would enjoy this, because while some obviously will, it also cuts a little too close to the bone, where an homage spills over into counterfeit behaviour. There's no denying that 'Elenion Ancalima' is a very well made, emotional and evocative album, but I wish they had a few points of difference from their heroes. Perhaps on the next album.

Arch Summoning impersonators Emyn Muil return with their third full length ‘Afar Angathfark’. Unlike other projects that borrow liberally from the Austrian masters of Tolkien metal, Emyn Muil seem intent on making music completely indistinguishable from them. It raises many interesting questions about the nature of imitation; namely how a near perfect imitation could affect the metrics we use to judge quality. Can we critique a project like Emyn Muil without mentioning Summoning (a prima facie impossibility)? Is there anything to be gained from that? The unavoidable fact is that this is no cheap rip off. There is craft, care, and imagination applied to these tracks, as with every Emyn Muil album. But listening to it with foreknowledge of the kind of music we can expect from this project, one cannot help but wonder what the intention was, and second guessing said intention leads to a distracting listen to say the least. The short answer to the riddle of Emyn Muil is that for those after some extra Summoning material, there’s now three quality albums right here to tuck into. The longer answer is spun out in the ramblings below, because the history of Emyn Muil is rooted in the history of Summoning.

Firstly, ‘Lugburz’ (1995) the outlier aside, it’s important to distinguish two facets to the Summoning formula. One is defined by (but not limited to) the earlier efforts ‘Minus Morgul’ (1995), ‘Dol Guldor’ (1997), and ‘Nightshade Forests’ (1997). The keyboards are cheaper, the mix a bit rougher, it’s technically clunkier. But transcending these limitations they crafted a whole new approach to black metal as a new form of program music, making Tolkien’s world the ideal backdrop to this. Simple cyclical melodies were layered on top of one another, articulated increasingly through keyboards, with guitars merely providing texture. Drums were defined by a militaristic tribalism of sorts; as ponderous, slow rhythms centred around the toms and snare, with only the most minimal cymbals coming into play. Vocals stuck to the black metal framework. Everything sounded cheap, from the keyboard patches to the drums to the samples, but this only added to the character. Much like Tolkien’s work themselves, a unique and entirely modern form of folk expression was coming to life, an approach and influence that went well beyond the music itself.

The break with this formula began from ‘Stronghold’ (1999) onwards, although ‘Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame’ (2001) saw them take a more commercial approach to the older format. In fact these two albums always felt out of order in the discography, with later releases returning to the atmospheric, ethereal direction of ‘Stronghold’ and shedding the bombastic confidence of LMHSYF. Setting aside this glitch in the matrix, after 2001, the approach became fluid, dynamic, the keyboards defined more by layers than cycles, clean vocals became a regular feature; it behaved more like one’s idea of what a traditional fantasy score should sound like. ‘Oath Bound’ (2006) and ‘Old Morning’s Dawn’ (2013) typified this approach. But in attempting to modernise the production values, the unique charm to this music was lost. ‘Oath Bound’ may have succeeded regardless as the power of Summoning’s melodic sensibilities and storytelling through music shined through regardless. But it was an attempt from Summoning to be something they were not: a soundtrack to a narrative, and not the narrative itself. Older Summoning, for all its technical shortcomings, existed for its own sake and beyond its own ontological limitations. Later these limitations were shed, but the philosophical aspirations suffered as a result. However, enough of that, we’ll save it for the book of Summoning lore that I’ll definitely get around to writing.

Emyn Muil up to this point have drawn on the second era of Summoning outlined above. But on their latest offering ‘Afar Angathfark’ they take a much wider survey of their Austrian forebear’s career, calling all the way back to ‘Minus Morgul’ for inspiration; and the lengthy runtime reflects this wider scope. ‘Old Morning’s Dawn’ is probably the most prevalent influence; not least on the spoken word finale to ‘Noldomire’ (seriously, is that the same bloke). But more fundamentally in the way the keyboards – through subtle organ and string tones – flow with the pulse of the drums as opposed to providing sharp, staccato melodies that cut across the graceful tom rolls. They essentially take up the post of rhythm guitar, leaving the guitars themselves to do what keyboards would normally do on atmospheric black metal, namely providing texture and depth. The track ‘Heading Eastward’ points to how LMHSYF began this morphing process, transitioning from old to new, with strings and guitars trading riffs as they are carried along by the marching drums. There are many other moments throughout ‘Afar Angathfark’ that mirror key moments in Summoning’s career in miniature, and illustrate how their sound has progressed over the years. The chief shortfall as far as Emyn Muil are concerned being a lack of forward direction. No clue or hint is offered as to where these ideas could be taken. This is a shortfall that both artists have in common however.

So in one sense, you could dismiss ‘Afar Angathfark’ as a competent survey of Summoning’s career, and nothing more to add. But there is more to be said in answer to the riddle of Emyn Muil. If one is to make an academic study of Summoning’s career – a worthy pursuit given their body of work and its unique standing in extreme metal – then Emyn Muil are a useful fount of secondary source material. This musician has clearly studied Summoning’s music closer than most, and become not so much a tribute act as an alternative timeline. But as expanded on above, the Summoning “sound” is not a static object to draw ideas from, it has developed, changed, and grown over time. It’s a living object. Emyn Muil, in taking a broader survey of their career, are able illuminate important moments in this timeline, the factors that defined their style at certain points, and in doing so elucidate on the heart of this simple yet endlessly complex sonic mythology. Even taken on its own then, Emyn Muil are at least academically valuable. But artistically, it has not yet found (or even shown signs of wanting to find) the next step forward. Musical ideas, like any other ideas, grow and change as they possess people, infectious ideas become movements, movements become establishments, establishments become part of history, history becomes a body of traditions. ‘Afar Angathfark’ is an analysis of an idea, but it offers no path to turning this idea into a movement.

Originally published at Hate Meditations