[.ca] Lost Tales (2 Tracks) (Maxi)

Protector Needed a New Sword:
Well, as soon as I saw this album was available, I bought it. Summoning has been my favorite band for some time now and despite the mixed bag that "Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame" was, I still buy their releases without a moment's hesitation. I was particularly excited to get my hands on this release as it had been described as having unreleased material from the Dol Guldur/Nightshade Forests age, the pinnacle of their technical achievement and innovation. Well, you can imagine my surprise when it turned out to be just a couple of keyboard tracks with some corny vocal samples thrown on top. Yes, my friends, as will become evident, Protector needed a new sword and Silenius some more face-paint; seeing as they were strapped for cash, they dug out some bootleg cassette tape of unused keyboard licks, threw some Tolkien vocal samples on it, and sold it to their loyal fanbase. Taurine Waste-Product! These are two keyboard only tracks. No vocals. No guitars. Now, I wouldn't have particularly minded that so much if they had at least cleaned up the sound a little bit. The production is terrible and does not really work for something like this. This is not a Darkthrone album, boys: bathroom-stall sound is not a virtue. This is also indicative of the minimal effort that was put into re-packaging this material for the public. Lazy and inconsiderate. Having said that, I must say the first track, Arcenstone, is pretty good, and thus the CD still merits three stars (though I feel like giving it two out of principle). This IS Summoning after all. There are some great ideas and some great sounds and SOME of the samples are used well. The second track, Saruman, however, is terrible. Boring and repetitive with some very cheezy samples of Saruman from some broadcast or cartoon or something that, after Christopher Lee's performance in Jackson's films, is just pitiful. The keyboards sound like something from the soundtrack to "The Neverending Story". (Good movie, but don't want to hear its score on a Summoning CD). Indeed, this song suffers quite a bit from the "Look! I have a Casio" syndrome. So all in all, two songs, one pretty much rocks, the other is terrible. Add to that the atrocious sound quality, cheezy samples, and the fact that these are not really Summoning songs, and you have something that is clearly an attempt at making money off of their fans. Perhaps the label pressured them. Perhaps they didn't realize how dumb an idea this was. In any case, this CD is not worth buying. And whatever you do, if you've never heard any Summoning PLEASE do not start here. Get either the "Nightshade Forests" EP or the seminal "Dol Guldur" album. "Minas Morgul" is tremendous too (slightly marred by Casio syndrome but not by much). And to Richard and Michael: I've been a devoted fan of yours since Lugburz came out, yes, since Lugburz came out. Please don't rip us off like this again. At least clean up the sound next time. I await your next REAL release.

• Arcenstone 9:17
• Saruman 7:40