werm

oohh i'm just a small little goblin

a 1/1 worm creature spell for one black / one green, with tap - put a 0/1 black worm creature token on the onto the battlefield under your control


sorry I need this.

background, I got into synthwave back in rapidly checking when Hotline Miami 2 came out 2015. the explosion of popularity hit shortly after but I was there first I swear. these days there are precious few artists I regularly check up on from the scene, essentially just those who have branched out somehow or done something I consider interesting. which leads us to Gost.

I heard Behemoth when I was still new to synthwave, and I thought it was pretty dope at the time. but there was something that held it back, a certain simplicity to the songwriting and arrangements, which contrasted the sound design which was on the whole pretty progressive for the genre at the time.

Gost has come a long way, and he is one of those artists that I do still follow because his records are always interesting. but that's not to say they're always as good as I would like them to be. over the years Gost has brought in extreme metal and goth as elements to the darksynth base, and these have been welcome additions. and! and those things that were lacking in the early records, the songwriting and arrangements, they've gotten way better! more complete, more interesting, it's been cool as hell to see these things improve over time.

but let's talk about production for a moment. Gost's music has a particular quality to it, in the way it is produced, which makes extremely blown out and at times, really fuckin flat. (I don't know the technicals here enough to explain it better). this quality does make the music sound heavier and I assume this is why this choice has been made but I'm sick of it.

the problem is that things got better at one point! I don't see a lot of love for Valediction online, and I'm always surprised, because for me, that album is a 10, next to his other records which hit at 8 at best. I'm lowkey convinced someone else was there cooking on that album because the production is significantly different from every record before and since, and it is so. much. better. there is depth and restraint and nuance and it just sounds sooo good to my ears. at the time it was released Gost talked about rebuilding all his synths from scratch and I was there like yes! I can hear that! it's the old sound but new and mature and it's fuckin sick. this was final form Gost, a redefined and considered sound.

then we got Rites of Love and Reverence, and this year we got Prophecy. and the blown-out sound is back, aaaaand it still, kinda sucks. these aren't bad records, they are both better than any of his pre-Valediction efforts in most ways, but they both faulter when it comes to the production. and because we've had it better, it's just real frustrating.

I don't have a lot of hope at this point, I'll check in with future records, but I don't expect much. I don't think we're gonna get that magic again. I wanna grab Gost by his stupid skull mask and tell him to go find the person who helped out on Valediction and get on with making all-timers because the potential is there.

chasing the heaviest sound doesn't necessarily end up anywhere interesting. the destination is never even reached, only reached in the moment. the gains of breaking the current limits of the sound in one dimension must be considered next to every other dimension of the sound, or so much ends up left behind.


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