Blood of Angels CD Review
By Monica Valentinelli | February 9, 2008
Michelle Belanger lends her soprano voice to this musical selection by Nox Arcana.
Like their other selections, Blood of Angels is based on a theme. In this case, the idea that the “Watchers” alluded to in myth and religious texts were angels that fell from Heaven to fall in love with humans.
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Carnival of Lost Souls Review
By Flames | June 6, 2007
Nox Arcana’s newest CD in their collection is devoted to the grim, grotesque and the macabre all found within a dark carnival. The CD opens with an introduction; the ringmaster, voiced by Joseph Vargo, welcomes one and all to the “circus of the strange.” Indeed, this CD is “strange” for on it you will hear a blend of organ music, children’s voices and haunting melodies.
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Mythmaker Review
By Flames | March 11, 2007
Mythmaker, while affording Key and Ogre their individualism as musician and artist and possessing the “updated” sound of the current iteration of Skinny Puppy, reaches back in time. Back into the closets. Back down into some of the hidden holes and shallow graves that the band had dug with their bare hands back in the day when they began pioneering away from Winnipeg and into the faces of the rest of the world, changing the meaningless term of “post-punk” into the force to be reckoned with genre of modern industrial music.
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Fanez-Vous Pour Noircir (Fade to Black) Review
By Flames | July 19, 2006
Ahoy matey! These days pirates and swashbucklers are all the rage on land and on sea. With roleplaying games like the recently released Conan: the Pirate Isles by Paizo Publishing and the older title Skull and Bones by Green Ronin out on the market, it should come as no surprise that GMs and players alike are on the hunt for some mood-setting music.
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Out of the Ether Review
By Flames | June 20, 2006
The intro track had set a wonderful feeling for the soundtrack, giving a nice intro and everything. As the CD got going though, I found my self increasingly tuning it out. Not because the music was boring, but because besides the first intro track, every track is well over 5 minutes a piece, most being 7-9 minutes in length. Now, this isn’t some mainstream CD, so track lengths aren’t really applicable here. But over 7 minutes of non-developed musical ideas makes for a very boring CD to listen to.
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Darklore Manor Review
By Flames | May 20, 2006
I’ve been picking up various motion picture scores (not soundtracks) and King Diamond albums (no kidding) for years to use as background music in my campaigns, but I’ve never been very impressed with any self-produced albums meant specifically to serve as roleplaying campaign scores. For the most part, I’ve found such efforts to be of an amateurish quality at best, often sounding more like a funhouse sound reel than a musical composition. Nox Arcana changed this by delivering a polished, professional and purely enjoyable product in Darklore Manor.
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Desecrated Ashes Review
By Flames | May 2, 2006
Desecrated Ashes was the full release of the EP Consecrated Ashes. The release year was 2003, and the band has continued to do well. URN is based out of Chicago, but has toured in many cities. They have even had airplay of their music in Canada and Mexico, not to mention the United States.
On first listen, Desecrated Ashes was a little hard to get into. Honestly, I felt very indifferent about the album. After more listening, I really started to warm up to the music.
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Necronomicon (Nox Arcana) Review
By Flames | November 12, 2005
Nox Arcana delves headfirst into the darkness with its musical tribute to the Cthulhu mythos. Creating a haunting festival of sounds to this is a challenging feat—every day that passes Cthulhu transforms into more of an icon than a mere concept of Lovecraft’s imagination. Nox Arcana delivers its tribute in a jarring way; this is not a CD that should be idly played in the background, this is a performance that demands your attention.
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13th Hour (Midnight Syndicate) CD Review
By Flames | September 6, 2005
Haverghast Mansion sits beyond a path through the mist, where crickets herald your coming and cascading violins cry of deadly possibilities. “The 13th Hour”, a “haunting blend of horror movie music, dark orchestration, and chilling sound effects”, is more than just a group of sounds thrown together on a page. It’s a purposeful collection of music designed to tell a story from the first song title to the next. Songs like “Mansion in the Mist” conjure images of a Victorian mansion decayed through time and neglect, flow into the next by an expert set of unseen hands.
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