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Menzoberranzan is a national anthem for a fictional location. As the second album by the Ohio dungeon synth artist Faydark, it recalls the history of the titular region. In Dungeons & Dragons lore, Menzoberranzan is a city-state from Forgotten Realms, a popular campaign setting. Faydark, real name Jake Kohn, who also composes under the alias Vale Minstrel, characterizes it with grand orchestral synths that move through its eras, seasons, and regimes. It’s like a non-verbal documentary delivered with an enthusiasm befitting a YouTube lore deep-dive. 

Compositionally, Menzoberranzan is closer to classical music with its dramatic swells and long-form movements than it is traditional dungeon synth, or even video game soundtracks. The latter is a large influence on Kohn. Final Fantasy and EverQuest moulded his mind. The densely-layered melodies imprinted a hunger for the fantastical. To him, if one is to convey the scripture of a land, it must be large, robust, mighty, and hearty. There’s no space for minimalism. 

Kohn made that obvious in a conversation with Kaptain Carbon, “Fantasy to me represents endless imagination and a natural desire to experience the universe in a much more profound and interesting way.” That’s the best way to absorb Faydark–a realm we cannot reach, represented with highlights and hues we recognize but cannot produce with our hands. Although Faydark honors the dungeon synth forefathers, he reworks them to fit the Hero’s Journey. He celebrates fantasy tropes as much as he does the genre’s solitary roots.

Last year, Kohn performed at Great Lakes Dungeon Siege under his Vale Minstrel mantle. He returns to the festival next month as Faydark. We spoke to him about his new record, gear set-up, and more.

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You take inspiration from old-school RPGs. How is composing for Faydark different than composing for video games, which are more loop-based and inherently repetitive?

Faydark, I feel, is closer to something like classical in its structure, with movements, scenes, and isolated sequences as opposed to repetitive, loop-based video game music. It’s not particularly complex music like classical tends to be. Structurally, the riffs are more like old-school dungeon synth. Mortiis, Gothmog, Depressive Silence, and, for me, Morketsvind, but stretched out. Each section sets up the next. At times, themes are visited in each part that are subtly interwoven through the whole song, or certain riffs are revisited for repetition and emphasis. So I think it’s quite different. Spiritually I think it (could be) quite the same!

How difficult was it to write Menzoberranzan as a single piece? Did you have to change your mindset since Lost Empires was four different, albeit long, songs?

It ended up being easier, actually. That method just seemed to be what this album called for. As I started writing it, I intended to just make it four long songs, like Lost Empires, but it seemed hard to finish the first track. Each successive part seemed to spill into the next one in a natural way. After 15 minutes or so of material I had the idea, what if this just kept going and was one long 45-minute narrative? I think to make a long 10-minute song with a beginning, middle, and end that all go together takes a degree of focus that I had a hard time finding last year, so it became easier for me to make something like three-to-six minute “scenes” and string them all together in a way that made sense. That’s just how this one turned out.

You recorded Menzoberranzan on a 1990’s Roland JV hardware, how pivotal is that gear to Faydark? 

Totally essential! I think Menzoberranzan is actually spread out quite a bit, a little bit too much with the sounds it used, as far as patches. I had just recently got the JV-1080 and filled it full of some of the expansion cards that Spectrasonics made for Roland in the ‘90s (four in the JV1080, and one in the JV90 for a total of five). So, at the start of Menzoberranzan, I had like 1,400+ patches across those two pieces of hardware to write with. Frankly it was too much! An overwhelming flood of new sounds. It slowed me down and made everything take a lot more time. Since then I have gotten more used to it. For the new Faydark album I am primarily returning to just the JV90 and Orchestral 1 expansion card. Those are still the best!

How does that compare to your gear for Vale Minstrel?

Completely different. Vale Minstrel was 100% VST. Not a single piece of hardware. Faydark is almost all hardware. Maybe like 85-90% anyways. There is some VST backup behind the audio of Faydark, mostly just to keep the MIDI around in the event I want to change something later and re-record the audio. It can also help to punch through the mix a bit and make it slightly richer in some cases. There’s also some drums and percussion in Faydark that is VST, although not much. On the new album, nearly all the percussion is hardware only (JV90). Other than that, Faydark is all JV hardware and probably always will be! Although I use a Korg X5D for live shows. It is much smaller than the JV90 but has the same powerful 64 voices and patches from the same era. 

Faydark’s music is compositionally quite rich (I think specifically of “Cormanthyr ”). What led you to favor this sound instead of the skeletal strain of dungeon synth?

Probably just taking inspiration from other artists that have similar style of epic and long sagas of music and media through the lens of Fantasy Fantasy, which, in its essence, is epic. Nothing short and skeletal can really be considered epic! It must be a long journey, with many peaks and valleys. Moods and narratives. Battles, seasons, and dreams. It just has to be really, really long! Just like all the great fantasy books. I also really enjoy the artistic decision-making that comes with longer, sometimes complex compositions. It makes everything more interesting and more fun! But it is a lot more work.  

Lost Empires covers four different regions of Faerûn. How did you convey their history and personality differently on each of the tracks?

Each track was composed with the lore of these regions fresh and ingrained in my mind. Envisioning the rich tapestry of oil paintings from the ‘80s and early to mid ‘90s. All the fantasy art of TSR. The novels that many grew up reading and all the characters and locations that are endemic to The Realms. I have been a fan of this setting since I was a young teenager, so it really just made sense to have it ingrained into this project. I feel like there are many synergies with the project’s name Faydark, which of course comes from Everquest, a game I feel is very plainly and obviously styled after Dungeons and Dragons, in particular, the golden era of 2E and 2.5E. It’s the quintessential high fantasy setting and imagery that I enjoy the most.”

For someone unfamiliar with D&D, can you explain the significance of Menzoberranzan and why you’d dedicate an album to it?

I think there’s a fair argument that Menzoberranzan is the most unpleasant place in all of Toril. Within the Material Plane anyways. I mean, what could possibly be worse? An entire city absolutely crazed with murder and paranoia. A non-stop orgy of torture, death, ritualistic sacrifice, dark magic, and warfare. An absolute nightmare. More or less the last place you’d ever want to be. The original idea of Faydark was ‘Ambient Drow’ music and the earliest tracks I composed go back to 2020 or 2021 and are much, much more ambient in nature. I plan on releasing that stuff at some point, probably as a split EP. Those ideas got shelved and the first album ended up just being related to Faerûn in general, but I knew the time was ripe after that to finally make a Drow album. There will surely be more I am guessing! All praise the Spider Queen!

Since you were making music as Vale Minstrel and Faydark last year, did you find that they influenced or affected one another?

Well, the way it worked out, the first four Vale Minstrel albums got progressively more orchestral in nature. That wasn’t really intentional; it just seemed natural for it to evolve that way. But eventually it got so far outside what the first few Vale Minstrel albums were, which were very upbeat and light medieval fantasy synth music, that eventually it made more sense for me to port the more orchestral sounds over into something which fit that style more. Faydark, meanwhile, still had the early ambient material sitting around that I wasn’t happy with at the time, so I decided it would make more sense to revive Faydark and continue the style that Vale Minstrel had become but through a different lens. And with hardware! I do still think there will be some new Vale Minstrel at some point in the future but for now I am fully focused on Faydark.

Do you try to tell unbiased histories of the locations in Faydark, or are they accounts by an unnamed narrator with their own views?

I think they are open to interpretation, like your own game or campaign that you are writing, you may take some bits and pieces of the lore and histories of the setting, but ultimately add plenty of your own material to the mix. I find it strange when I do that with writing, in games like Dungeons and Dragons, when your stories begin to take on a life of their own and have odd synergies with the established lore that seem to connect coincidentally and not by design, as if the world is something that is mutable and bendable to your will. I guess music can be much the same in that sense.

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Menzoberranzan is available now. Buy tickets for Great Lakes Dungeon Siege here.

Lady Gaga’s been busy this year, winning Grammys, making a cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2, touring last year’s Mayhem, and getting nominated for Emmys. Now, the pop legend often referred to as mother is actually a mother.

The post Lady Gaga Now Literally Mother appeared first on Stereogum.

The concept of destiny has fascinated philosophers, theologians, and artists for centuries, yet it remains an elusive and deeply personal topic. How does one truly define destiny? Is it a predetermined path that we are bound to follow, or is it shaped by our choices, with fate intervening only when necessary? Some may view destiny as a universal force guiding our lives, while others see it as a personal journey, one that we must carve out ourselves. Perhaps it is a combination of both, blending the individual and the cosmic in ways that we may never fully understand. This collection

The post 10 Best Rock Songs About Destiny appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

System of a Down are one of the strangest “starter bands” in the Metal Canon, and their smash-hit sophomore album Toxicity is one of the strangest albums to bring so many under the metal fold. You’re not greeted by classic heavy metal horror iconography on the cover. You’re not treated with blistering, shreddy guitar solos. There’s nothing all that poppy to draw in the metal agnostics nor anything especially brutal to lure in the born metal sickos. But ever since kid Andy-War-Hall first witnessed some other kid caterwauling “Wake up! Gababushanpudonaiddlemaygup!” on Rock Band II, I’ve been sold on heavy music. Because it’s not despite System of a Down and Toxicity’s eccentricities that they serve as an excellent gateway to the genre, but because of them.

I’ve heard many revisionist claims over the years that System of a Down were never nü metal. These are wrong. Take the down-tuned grimy groove of “X”‘s second riff or the Rootsesque toms on “Forest” and tell me they don’t get your wallet chain jangling. But I get it, too. Toxicity is more artistically aligned with Faith No More or Primus than Korn, a project defined by restless experimentation and adventure while operating within the bounds of popular music. Toxicity treats listeners to a ludicrous gamut of styles, serving up folk-tinged hardcore in “Deer Dance,” psychedelic thrash in “Science,” symphonic alt-metal in “Aerials,” and so, so much more. SoaD make it all make sense—and look easy. Guitarist Daron Malakian (Scars on Broadway) stacks deceptively simple, eccentric riffs over each other in ways that turn songs like “Science,” “Psycho,” and the inimitable “Chop Suey!” into lush canvases of belligerence¹ while drummer John Dolmayan and bassist Shavo Odadjian deliver blistering chops (“Needles”) and effortless groove (“Toxicity”). And vocalist Serj Tankian is simply one-of-one; who else could have made the ridiculous vocal acrobatics of “Chop Suey!” and “Toxicity” or the buckwild deliveries of “Bounce” and “Shimmy” work? Not many, just as not many bands other than System of a Down could make as off-beat and idiosyncratic an album as effortlessly catchy as Toxicity.

Toxicity makes for shockingly easy listening, and yet System of a Down managed to imbue challenging ideas into its artistic fabric. Toxicity swings at head-spinning speeds between lyrical bluntness and esotericism.² One moment you’re being regaled in explicit details of the corruption surrounding the American prison industry (“Prison Song”) and the very next they’re yelling at you to pull a tapeworm out of your ass (“Needles”). Tankien will be going off about overpopulation and genocide (“X”) and all the while you’re still wondering what was up with the horse earlier (“Jet Pilot”). But both of these approaches demonstrate SoaD’s artistic daring. Toxicity wasn’t written to make you comfortable: SoaD won’t mince words on political matters and neither are they inclined to spell it out for you. If you’re like me, it’ll give you plenty to mull over for years. “Science” will have you examining how belief shapes human experience, “Forest” will have you questioning your place within the natural order, and “ATWA” will have you weighing how (or if) you can incorporate worthwhile ideals from an overall evil ideology (“Air, Trees, Water, and Animals” being infamous cult leader Charles Manson’s ecological philosophy.³) Along with System of a Down’s distinct musical identity, this commitment to exploring the hard and obscure truths of reality is what makes Toxicity not only so alluring to begin with but so inviting to revisit years later.

System of a Down and Toxicity teach the burgeoning metalhead an invaluable lesson: expect the unexpected. As much as metal purists loathe to admit it, heavy metal is a particularly fluid, adventurous genre, hellbent on deviation and experimentation wherever anyone is brave enough to try. SoaD weren’t afraid of contradictions when they made Toxicity: it is both blunt and off-beat, confrontational and crowd-pleasing, immediate and demanding of your attention and consideration. If you haven’t given Toxicity a spin in a while, give it a go sometime and see if you can’t find something you’ve never noticed before. Similarly, if you know someone who’s curious about heavy metal, you wouldn’t go wrong pointing them in Toxicity’s direction. Subjecting them to “Chop Suey!” on Rock Band couldn’t hurt, either.

The post Yer Metal Is Olde: System of a Down – Toxicity appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Well how was this not going to be great? “Angela Sincerely” is the new single from The Speedways. Matt Julian co-wrote the song with the legendary Paul Collins, who also contributes some vocals. Collins was a big admirer of Julian’s solo song “Sarah I Dare Ya” and inquired about the two of them working on a song together. Imagine what an honor it must be when the King of Power Pop comes calling about collaborating. I will say this: Paul Collins has good taste! Julian had recorded a rough demo (just a verse, chorus, and guitar solo) of “Angela Sincerely” onto his phone last Christmas. Earlier this year, Collins arranged the song and added some bridge parts. And here we are with a Speedways song featuring Paul freaking Collins! This is one of the most Beatlesque songs The Speedways have ever put on tape — a timeless two-and-a-half-minute pop song with magnificent guitar hooks, an instantly memorable chorus, clever lyrics, and a melody you’ll be whistling all week. The song will not appear on The Speedways’ new album. It’s an exclusive B-side to the band’s vinyl release of “All Bets Are Off,” which will be out this coming Friday. So yeah, if you’re a Speedways fan, the new 7″ is gonna be a must-have!

It’s hard to believe that it had been two years since The Trouble Seekers had last released a single! Time just keeps on ticking, doesn’t it? Well, Kevin and Hillary are back with the absolutely raging “Blackout,” and they haven’t missed a beat. This one’s short and not so sweet — 102 seconds of frenzied future punk that slashes away at your senses and then abruptly drops the mic. As always, Kevin and Hillary are in perfect chaotic harmony. You can surmise that a song called “Blackout” is not the feelgood hit of 2026, and of course that’s the whole point. You know The Trouble Seekers aren’t afraid to summon their demons and wrestle them in the cage of madness. The universe continues to plunge into darkness, but the soundtrack sure is hot!

The post Photo Gallery: BUCKCHERRY Live at House of Blues in Dallas, TX on Thursday, September 10th, 2026 appeared first on INFRARED MAGAZINE.

Five tracks. One concentrated descent into occult violence. Instead of accompanying their new release with another isolated performance clip, DROWN IN SULPHUR have filmed their entire Strix EP as a full live session. The video presents every song in sequence, capturing the renewed Italian lineup in its natural environment: surrounded by crushing riffs, blast beats […]

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Contention, out of Tampa Bay, FL, came up in 2019 putting out a brutal sound that they dubbed “apocalyptic straight edge” that is defined by shrill vocals, thrash guitar riffs, and heavy-ass breakdowns. After releasing a couple early EPs the band really hit their stride, releasing their first full length album Artillery From Heaven that was well received and put them on the map. The energy and ferocity they put into songs like “I.C.B.M.”, “Chasm” and “Lobotomite Bliss” is admirable and interludes that pay homage to mid-to-late aughts metal core bring on a wave of nostalgia.

The album was put out by hardcore power label DAZE and the band set off on a world tour through North America, Europe, and Asia and got them booked at one of the premiere North American hardcore fests, Sound and Fury.

Immediately following their set at S&F they dropped a new 3 track EP, Nuclear Summer, that’s a real tease of things yet to come for Contention. “Second Sun” and “Blank Stare” turn the band’s sound heavier than ever before. The third song, “X On Our Knees X” is a cover from 90’s powerviolence band The Swarm AKA Knee Deep in the Dead and listening to the two versions side by side you can tell how much of an impact The Swarm had on their sound. On the messaging behind the new three-song drop vocalist, Cosmo Vidussi, had this to say, “Modernity brings no enlightenment, only more refined methods of annihilation. Annihilation of the enemy. Annihilation of the self. Our leaders have shed their increasingly thin facades of humanity. The masses shamble through life in a drug and media-fueled haze. They worship a machine that grinds them to dust and uses them for fuel. Cities are leveled in our name. Bombs are assembled with our tax dollars. We’re held hostage by a small group of deranged degenerates with nuclear arsenals and a lust for ruin.

Are these the final days? Or is the suffering of modernity only a single day swallowed by a quarter eon of unchecked brutality?”

For nearly eight minutes, NIGHT HAG refuse to let the listener surface. “Drowned in Death” begins with an unsettling, almost hallucinatory introduction before collapsing into brutish percussion, cavernous growls and guitars that writhe through walls of distortion. The initial violence eventually slows to an agonising crawl, leaving behind a pulse that sounds increasingly faint beneath […]

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