Here’s a lovely recent review of “Mordor Ballads” from Life in the Vinyl Lane (https://lifeinthevinyllane.com/2024/11/02/black-numenorean-woe-mordor-ballads-2024/)

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on the extended Tolkien-verse. Yes, I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, and I’ve seen the Peter Jackson movies at least half a dozen times each. But I gave up on The Silmarillion and never dove deep into the lore. I’m not sure if this admission disqualifies me from writing about the newest release from Black Numenorean Woe, Mordor Ballads, but I’m willing to risk a Sauron side-glance or two because it is a great listen.

Right from the start of the opening track “The Morannon Yawns Wide” we’re hit with weighty chords, their dark density conveying a sense of foreboding, of a world trapped in darkness with even the air weighing down upon your spirit, jarring cymbal crashes sending electric currents through your nervous system. This sonic density permeates the entire album – even when it’s a single organ playing, such as in parts of “Doom to the Throng of Elendil”, there is a heaviness that cannot be escaped. If I’m picking favorites, to my ears everything comes together perfectly on “The Flame of Udûn Approaches”, the drums providing a marching cadence that foreshadows a battle about to be engaged, a struggle between the light and the dark. Who will be victorious?

Mordor Ballads is available digitally at the Black Numenorean Woe Bandcamp page HERE. The cassette version, in a hand-numbered edition of 50 that comes with a full-color postcard of the artwork, is available at the Dale of Shadows Bandcamp page HERE.

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