Band:	Ancient Mastery
Album:	Chapter Three: The Forgotten Realm Of Xul'Gothar
Style:	Atmospheric black metal
Release date:	April 04, 2025
A review by:	RaduP

01. Impending Shadows
02. Behind The Walls Of Urduk
03. The Treacherous Order
04. The Dread Of Xul'Gothar
05. To The North
06. From Depths Unseen

Since time immemorial, one of the most significant purposes of singing was to tell a story.

Judging by the fact that this is an album with "Chapter Three" in its title, you can already tell that this is a concept album that's part of a series of concept albums. The "Chapter" word specifically does a lot of heavy lifting communicating the narrative nature of the record. And the fact that black metal fans are a bunch of dorks (exemplified by the fact that half of the band names are taken straight from Tolkien), it also makes sense that, even when crafting their own stories with their own worldbuilding, they'd come up with places titled "Xul'Gothar" that sound like a homage to Tolkien to the point where I had to check whether that name appears anywhere in his works (nope, this album is the only thing that shows up when I Google the name).

So, to set things straight, Ancient Mastery is a one man black metal band, whose style of black metal is a very mid-90s kind of atmospheric/symphonic black metal, and whose albums follow a narrative with its own worldbuilding and stories, very evidently influenced by Tolkien. This one is the third part, and while it's a prequel to the first two parts, those who pay attention to the lyrics will still probably be confused about what elements of the setting like "Valdura" and "Virgol" and "Drämmarskol" are, and the way these were introduced in the first two parts makes listening to the albums in order make more sense. There's such a nostalgic quality to the cover art and the narrative and the music, that comes from the pool of influences, from black metal past like Dimmu Borgir and Summoning, to the old school RPGs with their fantastical/medieval settings, to the literary works that spawned all of it. It's the kind of thing that makes me wish there was more non-musical material to the world that's sung about, like maps and lore, aside from just what's in the lyrics.

I failed to mention so far that the person behind this project is Erech, a man of many projects, whose works I have covered already and was very much in awe of. But because of the multi-project approach, each imbued with its own personality, it wasn't until now that I felt as compelled by Ancient Mastery specifically, compared to some of the others. There's something that feels a bit too standard by the canon of black metal about the project, and with the narrative focus, the vocal approach is also one that makes the lyrics decipherable by black metal standards, but that also makes the sections of exposition feel the most uninteresting musically. The ones that are the most interesting musically are the ones where the story is progressed through the instrumental music alone, sometimes pulling back all the metal, down to a single synth. The ones where Erech's touches betray the fact that he's also involved in more forward-thinking projects.

There's a great sense of melody that makes this above average for the sound it does, but that doesn't live up to its full potential because it would mean detaching itself from the story-driven old school black metal that lies at the root of the project. And I don't think I'd want that to happen when that could just be pursued in a different project. I just hope that years from now, when the story is concluded, they get some amazing physical re-release with a bunch of extras.