I shall do my best to make you, gentle readers, aware of this genre. This genre that only attracts the most tortured of outsiders, those who long for the forgotten magic of the dead, to remain forever in the shadows of decaying tombs.
Dungeon synth is a small and mostly Internet-only genre of music that nonetheless has a surprisingly long history. In general, it is a genre of electronic music that merges elements of black metal and ambient to create dark musical soundscapes evoking images of medieval times, castles, dungeons (it's right there in the title), and fantasy themes.
Dungeon synth's beginnings are traced to the early Nineties and the second wave of black metal. Black metal musicians often included ambient-ish tracks (particularly but not always the intros) on their albums, striving to evoke the same kind of dark, mysterious, and more than a bit scary mood without the typical black metal instrumentation. At the same time, the do-it-yourself, Three Chords and the Truth mentality of the scene meant that the tracks often had a peculiarly low quality to it — as if they were recorded, you know... in a dungeon. The big names of this period — although neither musician claims to be the Trope Maker — are Varg Vikernes, who during his prison term for the murder of Euronymous only had access to a synthesizer, and Mortiis, whose Era I ambient albums were quite much the Ur-Example. Other black metallers also engaged in side projects which, while back then generally interpreted as off-shoots of various black metal sub-genres, are now seen as stepping stones to dungeon synth as it is now.
Of other early influences, British musician Jim Kirkwood, who between the late Eighties and mid-Nineties produced several albums of Tolkien-themed electronica, is nowadays considered an honorary founding figure of this early dungeon synth despite having no connection to the black metal scene. Also, the year 2001 saw the establishment of an Internet-based fantasy music radio station, Radio Rivendell. As with Jim Kirkwood, this is relevant as much as the radio is sometimes alleged to have had an influence on development of dungeon synth, by providing a source of fantasy-themed music unrelated to the black metal world.
At that time, apart from scattered instances of the word "dungeon", the genre did not yet have its name. It was a Weird Thing that existed, again, as either a side project of some black metallers who wanted to do something moodier than the average metal recording or as a primary project of those black metallers who could not afford a proper set. If black metal was a much-avoided, but notorious castle existing in some far-off grim and frostbitten kingdom, this was its dungeon.
So what happened? Internet happened. It turned out the acts weren't restricted to a cassette release of 666 copies available only through personal acquaintances of the musician anymore. Also, in 2011, a certain fellow by the handle "Andrew Werdna" set up a "Dungeon Synth" blog to record and review all these. He is credited with slapping the word "Synth" next to already present "Dungeon". Debuting a year later, Erang was the first to intentionally create music to be labeled as dungeon synth.
Although initially deriving its thematic influences from black metal and associated acts, the underground genre evolved. Medieval themes began to appear, calling out Satyricon's Dark Medieval Times for insufficient Dark Medievality (incidentally, Satyricon's Sigurd Wongraven was one of those early part-time dungeon synth creators; other big acts to follow within this trend are Utred and Chaucerian Myth). In leaving black metal purity behind, it also began to turn towards more clear fantasy. While fantasy fiction was always there as a source of inspiration — just remember where did Burzum get its name — it only became more and more overt, with acts moving away from implicit Tolkienisms to quite open worldbuilding. Again, Erang provides a good example by basing his entire musical output on a fantasy world of his own devising.
Indeed, with the Internet, came proliferation of acts and subgenres alike. Ca. 2020 (give or take some two years), the genre seemingly left the dungeon in which it had languished for so long and gained a measure of recognition. No, not really mainstream recognition... but now you only need to be familiar with odd stuff on the Internet, instead of being neck-deep in isolationist and at times intentionally repulsive subculture. Though some stood true to the "old-school", Internet-based acts began to differentiate by gimmicks, such as various genres of fantasy to draw inspiration from, or specific themes or moods to evoke within the broader set of genre conventions. Tracks sounding like classic old fantasy video game soundtracks appeared. At the far end, exist such things as "Cozy Synth" or "Comfy Synth", which are Lighter and Softer and share only a loose and much-stretched link with the original black metal acts.
And somewhere at that point — although the Ur-Example of this trend is likely Corvus Neblus' 1999 Strahd's Possession release — roleplayers got in on the fun. Dungeon synth became recognized as just the perfect kind of background music to put on as you push your players through the dungeon you devised. Some dungeon synth acts were clearly alluding to this, their names being puns on Tabletop RPG titles — and in at least one case, having openly been published as a promo to Mork Borg.
By the early 2020s, whether or not the individual artists are, the genre at large is not anymore underground; since technical and financial requirements for entry are quite low, the number of acts keeps going up and new releases appear on YouTube almost weekly. And yes, some old-timers — by which we mean "folks who were in at ca. 2010", Mortiis himself seeming to be just surprised and mildly amused with the impact that little phase he had in the Nineties had — see it as A Bad Thing. Time will tell what is yet to come out of the dungeon.
A decent outline of the history of the genre can be found e.g. in this video: Dungeon Synth, A Long Introduction | Esoteric Internet.
This genre exhibits the following tropes:
- Drone of Dread: There's some of it to build that gothic horror dungeon feel many acts aim for.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Since it wasn't a coherent genre for at least a decade or two before people decided to label it this way, there's plenty of retroactively labelled dungeon synth that sounds more like odd sort of neo-folk or dark ambient as performed by people who are not competent in playing either. The thematic influence also has less to do with dungeons or fantasy than with pagan themes, etc.
- Echoing Acoustics: Let's face it, if you want to sound like you recorded in a dungeon (the more so if you did actually record in a dungeon), you're gonna have those.
- Epic Rocking: Really, it's hard to find a single track that ends in just a few minutes.
- Face on the Cover: The face being a barely-lit and corpse-painted visage looming out of the darkness, per black metal tradition. Covers of albums not striving for old-school cred tend to be either straightforward fantasy art or a piece of public domain artwork.
- Genre Popularizer: This role is usually attributed to Andrew Werdna as the one who brought the genre out of obscurity, and to Erang for his consistent and consciously labelled creative output.
- Heavy Mithril: Yeah, the depths-of-Moria kind.
- Hollywood Prehistory: A staple of dino synth, one of the more tongue-in-cheek subgenres. The title of Diplodocus' first album, Slow and Heavy, tells you what to expect from the subgenre; true to dungeon synth's deliberately antiquated aesthetics, it is fond of the old, outdated vision of dinosaurs as slumbering beasts living in a steamy swamp.
- Indecipherable Lyrics: While initially it might have been an outcome of poor production quality second-wave black metal was infamous for, nowadays it's a conscious stylistic choice. Whether to emulate the "old school", or to evoke the imagery of something being spoken to you from a distant mythic past.
- Instrumentals: Quite common, really, to the point that having sung lyrics are more than unusual for a dungeon synth record.
- Recycled In Space: At some point, acts inspired by genres other than Tolkienian fantasy began to appear. It may be Planetary Romance (Knights of Nvrul), Sword and Sorcery, or even Star Wars (Bespin Moons).
- Sampling: Use of samples occasionally happens, though it's not common.
- Spoken Word in Music: Quite common, with the words usually dramatically spoken, put in reverb, and indecipherable. Understandable speech might mean it's one of the early borderline examples.
- Stylistic Suck: Lo-fi quality of the recording, poverty of instrumentation, and overall underground fantasy cheesiness are all a feature of this genre, not a bug.
- Three Chords and the Truth: "Three chords" being dunn-dunn-dunn on a synthesizer, and "the Truth", the all-important mood.
- X Meets Y: Inverted; it's more of a "X Minus Y". Black metal minus the metal.
