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.

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.