Born of the Night [Import]

Midnight Syndicate specializes in musical gothic horror soundscapes heralding back in tone to the classic locales of Victorian England and Colonial American Hudson Valley. Think Stoker, Poe and Irving (if you're the type inclined to think the Headless Horseman wasn't Brom Bones), with a good dash of Lovecraft thrown in. This, their first horror disk, centers around an ominous tower overlooking a coastal cliff.

What will strike you at first is the perfect buildup. At first you get a sense that it's still daytime, but that pea-soup kind of daytime in which you're already getting a little uneasy even though it isn't evening yet. Then you get a perfect musical interpretation of night falling, and the time when all sensible people are locking themselves indoors. Church bells tolling in the distance seem to suggest that you're not as close to civilization as you should be at this point, and sure enough the next few tracks once the sun goes down suggests that you encounter spirits (or worse) in a graveyard and are chased into the tower by living gargoyles who have wakened and taken wing into the night. Of course, in this case shelter hardly makes matters better as you then deal with more spirits and undead, including a baby in a nursery who presumably met a horrible fate, a ghostly funeral procession and at least one vampire in the tower's lower levels as midnight approaches.

What really surprises me is that the CD is so imaginative that I've found myself on occasion listening to it outside of October. It can be alot of spooky fun to make your own mental picture of what you're supposed to be seeing. The average horror affecionado will probably only need one CD of this kind, but if you want more, Midnight Syndicate and it's offshoot Nox Arcana offer several other horror scenarios, including Realm of Shadows - a direct sequel to Born of the Night relating the musical story of Raven's Hollow, a coastal town which the Dark Tower overlooks. Apparently, it turns out that reaching the nearest outpost wouldn't have done Born of the Night's protagonist any good after all...

By far, the darkest and most morbid opus yet by these malefik minstrels. Every song is an incantation, summoning up dire wraiths from the black void of the dark side of the mind. I found it somewhat amusing that these CD's are available at the commoner's outlets, as these conjurations will invoke something far more profound than the Halloween frivolities they would expect. I Am reminded of a display I once erected - I overheard someone say "...this is too much!" as they hurried down the hill to the street. And with that, I was pleased.

Again, this musick is a sonic key to The Gate of The Abyss, and will manifest the shadowmancy. Therefore, play it loud on The Night of The Ghoul, to give the herd a true fright as is the spirit of the season, and in thine secret chambres the year through.