Review Summary: Uneventful utter failure.
It shouldn’t be a problem to see an artist’s style change and evolve in time. Although, if it happens at the expense of quality, that should raise questions, at least. The artist known as ‘The Specter’ earned notable attention and respect from the dungeoneers’ community for the creation of
The Rise of the Specter, which is considered as a modern classic for conjuring of a truly grim and mystical atmosphere with ease. However, in recent years a massive downfall can be observed in the quality of Old Tower’s releases, and in
The Old King of Witches this trend reached a critical point.
“Shaving down to the bone and trimming the fat of the carcass to incant without rest and without resolution, oId tower resurrects the dying breed of dark ambient with '90s deep electronics to conceive of a new form of DARK MUSIC.” - says the description of
The Old King of Witches on Bandcamp, and this sentence alone perfectly illustrates the problems with this release. First of all: the dark ambient genre never really died, and nothing supports the need of any effort to resurrect it, since it’s still active and didn’t change drastically in time. Secondly: it’s really shocking to see the amateurish feel of this album, where
nothing really happens which could be seen not just as revolutionary, but as any good. The album offers a horribly dry experience, lacks flow and interesting moments, the only notable thing is the decent use of textures, but that without coherence or concept worths technically nothing.
The Old King of Witches is probably the most disappointing album in the whole year, and nothing justifies the existence of this nonsense other than The Specter’s self-esteem. Avoid this at all costs.
