Runereader – One Weekend in Keepvale EP
Runereader – One Weekend in Keepvale EP
Self-Released
Release Date: 25.09.26
Running Time: 27:30
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 675,830,288,327/10
I do not enjoy being an adult anymore. It was much more fun debauching myself and having other people clean up after me after a night on the tiles and in the beds of nubile young wenches. I am writing this on about three hours-worth or sleep on my new laptop (for Dark Juan is a man of means now and can afford things for the first time in his life). August has been a rather expensive month because the Silver Sturmvogel decided to spit out its own innards in a car park in the arse end of the Peak District National Park and made me have to engage the services of a lovely young man from Moldova called Pavel to bring us back to God’s Own Country. Mrs Dark Juan’s phone also gave up its admittedly valiant struggle against her Luddite Electronic Warfare field (normally stops all electronics working within a quarter-mile radius, which is why she is not allowed anywhere near the TV in Crow Cottage), which was another few hundred quid out of the back bin. This, however, was not calamitous as she is currently making an army of floral pigeons, because posh, rich lasses have latched on to her art and she now has to hand-make 15 of the fuckers. She’s earned nearly as much as I have this month, and all she has done is sew.
Anyway, the Silver Sturmvogel is dead. Long live the Weisser Engel!
The Platter of Splatter ™ has been dragged from confinement once more, this time to be subjected to the latest release from Runereader. Now, Dark Juan is acquainted with the absolutely batshit person responsible for Runereader and their incredibly esoteric melding of Black Metal, Folk and cinematics. “One Weekend in Keepvale” is the latest release for a man who is teetering precariously on the razor’s edge between sublime genius and gibbering madness.
Previous releases have seen Runereader meld Black Metal with very danceable Electronic music (I have written loads about them before – go and check out previous reviews on Ever-Metal.com and tell them Dark Juan sent you. They will disinfect you, but that’s for everyone’s safety), and with an almost pastoral Folk bent at times, but this time the mad fucker has gone totally baroque! There are lush, louche operatic female vocals, mournful strings, jaunty Folk guitars and an unshakeable feeling that this record is a descent into Dungeons and Dragons madness just like the PMRC warned us about in the 1980s. We are all going to Hell because Tipper Gore said so. Nevertheless, it’s a decent enough soundtrack for our eternal damnation.
‘The Eventide Rite’ is just one example of the kid in a sweet shop with unlimited funds approach to music that Runereader takes – It has the kind of Electronics and synth work that is beloved of 80s New Romantics, shoves it into a room with Black Metal and some unhinged vocal work that leans just to the correct side of gabbling insanity, and then leaves them with the lights off to fucking sort themselves out. There is rather a lot of babbling about dragon’s teeth and goblins, and it is all tremendously good fun, if not one for the purist…
‘No Party Like a Goblin Party’ leans heavily on Dance and early 2000s Acid House. No, I am not joking. It also references some fucking tasty power electronics and then… segue is not the right word… crashes fucking headlong into Black and Folk Metal. It’s a truly fucking mental melding of those T-shirts you used to be able to buy that changed colour when you sweated, a fucking shitload of Ecstasy, Techno Viking glaring at you and smiley faces and Blue Shield acid tabs and the kind of Terror EBM that Psyclon Nine deployed, yet wearing furs and breeches and wielding a fucking mahoosive broadsword. Even more bizarrely, it is a heavily Folk Metal-based song. It is very, very strange, and Dark Juan is fucking HERE for it!
‘I Hope the Lamp Stays Lit for You’ starts off sounding like a music box made by a fucking sadist before turning into the kind of cheery, beery Folk beloved of men with beards who like real ale with twigs and half the countryside in it. Until it isn’t and turns into the kind of expansive music that is Synthwave, but in a weird, off-kilter Folk-tinged way. It is as if Gunship discovered Folk music and then put it through a colossal bank of analogue synthesisers, giggling like schoolboys over a grumble mag all the while.
The words above are just a small selection of the dangerous delights of Runereader. The project is incredibly unique and challenges pretty much every single genre norm in extreme music and invents a few more just for shits and giggles, just so they can be cheerfully smashed into tiny little bits as well, because Runereader is quite, QUITE mad and wants precisely FUCK ALL to do with being labelled or categorised.
I said earlier that Runereader is either a genius or insane. It turns out you can be both at the same time. All Dark Juan knows is that this band is one of those rarest of things – something totally unique, and even though there is the odd jarring moment here and there, the consummate brilliance of the finished object transcends any mere words from this barely literate scribe. I LOVE Runereader because there’s nothing quite like them, and even though some people might find it laughable, lightweight or just incredibly difficult to stomach, Dark Juan GETS it in a fucking big way and loves being a small part of the insanity just by listening to it and writing about it. Poorly. Well, they always said those who can do it can, and those who can’t teach it. I’d add a caveat to that and say those who can’t do it become ersatz music journalists and write about other people’s talents.
I could fucking muller a bunch of goblins, though, stinky short-arsed green shits. Come near my treasure, you slimy little bastards, and I’ll feed you your own entrails. And your mother’s.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System has once more sedated Dark Juan for his own safety (mainly because he is shit at fighting because he is normally hungover) and has taken over this review, for the purpose of awarding Runereader 675,830,288,327/10, because we all know that Dark Juan adores mad shit.
TRACKLISTING:
- One Weekend in Keepvale (Intro)
- Another Awful Goblin’s Tale (Feat. Lissy White)
- Dragon’s Keep Looting Battalion (Feat. Luisa Tierney)
- The Eventide Rite
- No Party Like A Goblin Party
- I Hope the Lamp Stays Lit for You (Feat. Luisa Tierney)
LINE-UP:
Runereader – Vocals/Music/Lyrics/Production
Luisa Tierney – Guest Vocals (Tracks 3, 5 & 6),
Lissy White – Guest Vocals/Lyrics (Track 2)
Bella Ravenheart – Narration (Track 5)
Ria Bowers – Artwork
LINKS:
https://www.instagram.com/runereader_music/?igsh=MXM5cmltcHJ0aGRtaA%3D%3D
https://runereader.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/runereadermusic
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
