I recently had the opportunity to give Midnight Syndicate’s newest release, Monsters of Legend, a listen. If you’ve never heard of them, don’t feel too bad. I hadn’t either until Eva pointed them out to me. Their style is akin to most of the music you hear at Halloween haunts and things of that nature. You know the kind – creepy organs, ominous sound effects, and blood rushing melodies. I’m not a stranger to this type of music, but I’m definitely not an expert on it, either. Having said that, I definitely found Monsters of Legend to be one of the more solid albums I’ve come across from the genre.

First, let’s take a second to examine that album cover. I’m a sucker for the classic monsters, and here we have Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolfman, my two favorites, in a spooky, fog laden cemetery. Needless to say, I absolutely love it. Not only is it an awesome picture just on its own, but it also sets the tone for what you’re going to hear when you actually start listening to the album.

Throughout the course of the album, the song titles and the things you hear going on within the songs themselves seem to indicate that a story is being told. I’m not sure that it’s totally successful in telling said story, but I wouldn’t knock it for that. It’s incredibly hard to do when you don’t have lyrics and have to rely on sound effects and setting a specific tone with the music. Overall, I don’t feel that it detracts from the quality of the album.

Composers Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka

From beginning to end, there aren’t any songs here that are going spoil the tone and mood you look for when listening to this kind of music. Everything fits together nicely, and there are some real flashes of brilliance sprinkled in. Particularly, “Black Woods” and “It’s Alive!” had me giving Midnight Syndicate a standing ovation. I also enjoyed “Into the Valley of Shadows” and “A Terror Unleashed”. While those songs were the highlights for me, the rest of the album is not without its moments.

If you’re looking for some spooky music to spice up your Halloween, you could do a lot worse than this. I’m incredibly thankful to Eva for pointing Midnight Syndicate out to me. Having seen that many of their albums are available on Spotify, I’m going to go back and check out everything they have to offer, hopefully finding some great music to add to my Halloween playlist. I would suggest that all of you do the same.

You can find out more about Midnight Syndicate and purchase Monsters of Legend here, or check out the album tracks on Spotify.

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– It Puts the Lotion on its Skin: A TYoH Musical Interlude

Categories: Music

Tags: art, arts, Frankenstein, halloween, Halloween playlist, holiday, home haunting, horror, Midnight Syndicate, music, reviews, sound effects, spooky, Spotify, Wolfman