This Elegy reissue came out as a professionally pressed CDR with full-color packaging, reviving this folk-flecked Australian (formerly Tuyrkish) dungeon synth outfit for those that missed out on the original out-of-print release of his debut album from the previous year.

As I'm listening to this 2017 reissue on Elegy Records, the rain and snow is tapping against the outside of my house, and the sussurant hiss of our trees fills the air amid the ceaseless winter winds. Perfect time to listen to some old-school dungeon synth! This album presents some beautiful flowing synthscapes, evoking vast wildernesses and distant hilltop fortresses, the synths blending horns, strings, woodwinds, xylophone (!), and thunderous tympani sounds into imposing instrumental soundtracks, often rather dark and menacing asthe album delves inward. There's a folky element to Tir's music that adds some interesting contrast and aural textures to these songs, most of which keep things fairly concise at around five minutes or so for song lwengths. Which also means that some tracks like "Dilemma" feel more like sketches of a larger piece, but the sound is still fantastic. It's pretty obvious that this is drawing straight from the well of Burzum's Dauði Baldrs and Wongraven's Fjelltronen with Tir's focus on simple repeating passages, an almost mantra-like repetition that transforms many of these pieces into mesmeric mandalas of medieval mystery and mournful contemplation. Definitely one of the styles of "dungeon synth" that I personally dig, simple but emotive arrangements soaked in fog-blasted atmosphere and deep, droning melodies, less crafted for adventure and wonder, more for meditation and contemplation. The middle track "Forest Of Gloom" is one of the best examples of Tir's signature approach, with the minimal xylophone-like melody falling like glass tears across the basic but stirring three-chord synth progression; it's also the longest song on Mountains, which leads me to think that this project starts to excel when exploring longer and more expansive durations. it's all quite beautiful though, fans of classic 90's-era dungeon music and the most somber elements of neo-classical (a la Funeral Dusk and (early) In The Nursery are going to find themselves easily bewitched by the funereal dreamstate that this album effortlessly conjures.

Lush, mufffled choir-like harmonies and steady beat of a drum drive "Hinderance", with what sounds like a French horn blaring out of the shadows, a funerary march; those eerie voices reemerge alongside the ominous, doom-laden violins of "The Last Journey", backed by the album’s creepiest sounding arrangement, while an ancient cathedral bell tolls in the distance; chimes and bells introduce the title track, which goes for that Burzumic minimalism more than anything else on the album, a steady wood knock and chantlike voices wafting over a fantastic melody that circles around repeatedly. The final bonus track is where it gets weird though - "Satan's Rule " starts off with a snippet of the opening to Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" before suddenly dropping the needle onto a burst of thundering double bass, blackened guitar trills and chorus-drenched melody, building into what turns out to be a violent, raw black metal song with insane guttural vocals, off-time changes, those monstrous whacked-out vocals ahead of everything else in the mix, the song shambling and stumbling, a simple four-chord riff driven by monotonous drumming, there's an almost improvisational feel to what's going on, the music suddenly shifting into nothingness at the end. Wasn't expecting that to close this album out, that's for sure. Solid stuff with a unique regional vibe alongside the expected nods to the aforementioned albums and stuff like early Mortiis and Empyrium.