Review by Rexorcist for Summoning - Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame (2001)

Synthesizers in metal used to be an unholy taboo among fans of unholy music, a never do in a world where you do things that aren't supposed to be done.  As far as metalheads went, synths in metal made Ed and Al's human transmutation forgivable.  That all changed when Emperor said "well fuck you" to the metalheads who scremed about this taboo.  Because of them, synths in music are a kep component to black metal diversity and has spawned its own non-metal genre that's very popular among metalheads: dungeon synth.  Mortiis left Emperor to focus on his electronica, and thanks to that we now have bands molding the two together, and one of the most important bands in this scene is one of the most LOTR-influenced bands on Earth: Summoning.

Summoning made a name for themselves with their second-through-fourth albums, which the latter of these three, Stronghold, being their most beloved.  But they pretty much did the same thing until Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame came along.  This is an album that relies less on the atmo-black-metal ambiance and more on the fantasy vibes that dungeon synth exudes, essentially being a dungeon synth album in its own right, as opposed to allowing these synths to be a simple atmospheric backdrop like on previous Summoning albums.  This allows the album to take pride in the switch between pure dungeon synth, folksy fantasy, heavy black metal and lighter atmo-black.  There's a progression here that the other albums didn't have, almost comparable to the early works of Moody Blues in how often the shifts came.  And thankfully, the LOTR themes and presences are not only lived up to, but connect all of these genres together.  Although, the actual compositions themselves are not always at peak performance.  The songs are all good, but there's only occasional brilliance here, leaving the vibes and diversity to try and make up for the fluctuation in melodic quality.

If you're a metalhead looking to get into dungeon synth, or vise-versa, I can't think of a better album to start with than Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame.  This is a pure fantasy album that takes itself seriously while giving into fantasy cheese.