If you live in the upper half of the northern hemisphere, then February is the perfect time for a sojourn. The weather creates a cold you can feel in the deepest parts of your bones, nature is barren and the days are short. It’s the perfect time for a mental escape with a good fantasy novel while you sip on some warm tea and the sky pelts your home with gobs of snow. Andy Marshall’s Scottish-inflected, one-man creations as Saor are the matching soundtrack that perfectly sits alongside that experience.
The album opens with a title track that builds off some rolling drums before firing an electrifying tremolo riff, which is not unlike the one that opens “Into The Painted Grey” by Agalloch. Even though the song is blasting away, it often feels as though it’s soaring. When the song creates space, the whistles, which sound like flutes, and the pipes come in to take up that space and add to the sense of the fantastical. Around the eight-minute mark, the strings come in, bouncing off of the metal instruments like a glint of sunlight on white armor in a mud-caked battlefield. The late stretch of the song surges like a noble army making one last stand before the slow whistle outro draws the tale to its conclusion.
With one exception, the remainder of the album follows this pattern and uses these varying influences in a mix of effective ways. Marshall’s cleans on “Echoes Of An Ancient Land” sound like a the singing of a bards tale about ancient history backed by blasting blast beats and the strings add a lot of pop throughout the track. “Glen Of Sorrow” opens with a Neurosis-style, quiet, slow build that is rather ominous compared to what has come before it. Around the halfway point of that same track, Ella Zlotos’ cleans take on more of a wordless undulating that echoes and wafts hauntingly. Her voice comes across like a more reserved version of something Dolores O’Riordan would do as a backing track on a song by The Cranberries.
The aforementioned exception is “The Sylvan Embrace,” which also happens to be the only song that stays under 10 minutes. The heavy emphasis on clean acoustic guitar, the powerful cello that streams in and out of the song, and the overall slower, quieter approach turn this into Marshall’s take on The Mantle. It’s all the more appropriate that the closing track ends up the longest and bursts out of the gate like the last stand our rag-tag fantasy team is making against an evil empire. While this track brings everything before it together, its most impactful shift comes when the final six minutes feel like a final trudge up the peak of a mountain. The drums, in particular, keep rolling and building up momentum. All throughout, Zlotos’ voice adds an undeniable sense of triumph so that by the song’s conclusion, you can picture your hero atop a mountain surveying their success. The moment is both joyous and somber, balancing feelings of winning the day against those of sadness for what you lost along the way.
Ultimately, Saor’s latest journey is not a particularly new tale. These five fresh paths are built into a familiar map, meaning that while the twists and turns are fresh experiences, they are all very familiar and comforting. Amidst The Ruins won’t change any minds about Saor, but it makes for a cozy journey during a generally bleak month, like wrapping yourself in your favorite blanket and watching the extended cut versions of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy for the umpteenth time.