Artist: Moospirscher / Grundhyrde
Country: Germany / USA
Label: NIthstang Productions
Formats: Split Tape
Year: 2026
What we have here is a split tape that is quite a bit out of the ordinary. Grundhyrde is one of the many musical vessels of Sceadugenga, who’s also behind such great underground acts as Autumn Strife, Geheimnisvoll, Åndutsyn and a handful others, and has put out four split releases as well as two full-length albums. Moospirscher, on the other hand, is far more mysterious with releases under very obscure labels and delving into the world of Dark Ambient, Dungeon Synth and even chiptune.
That enigmatic act was allowed to open the dance with no less than eight tracks of haunting sounds that do remind of some of the darker and more sombre sort of Dark Ambient of the mid-00s. By no means I am an expert in this field, but to me this seem to have much more in common with Dark Ambient than with Dungeon Synth/ It even reminds me quite a bit of the work of Norwegian (experimental) Dark Ambient artist Karsten Hamre, best known for his work with Penitent and Veiled Allusions. I can handle a bit of this sort of sound, but honestly, to me this feels like I’m listening to the same thing for like fifteen minutes. Let’s put it this way: not entirely my cup of (black) tea.
For a moment I was afraid that Grundhyrde was also going to present us with the same sort of stuff, but Grundhyrde is just being itself. That means that we’re able to enjoy some of that quite recognizable raw yet melodic Black Metal with a strong riff-oriented propulsive drive. In fact, for the amateur music analyst that I am, I always found that Grundhyrde and Geheimnisvoll are quite similar. Of course not identical, but at least both projects seem to have born out of the same sort of mindset and penchant for thoroughly melodic and triumphant Black Metal. Most striking is the memorability of all three of these songs, they are all built around catchy riffs and melodies. It’s a rare gift to be able to crank out that much music, all of Sceadugenga’s projects combines, and still being able to convey that thoroughly recognizable and overall strong craftsmanship in song writing. In order to properly interpret this new material, I listened to the previous work again, and it is astonishing to note that Sceadugenga, in addition to the aforementioned, is able to improve and surpass himself with each release. Although there are only three songs (or perhaps precisely because of that), the whole thing comes across as very punchy and powerful and is perhaps the strongest material he has recorded with Grundhyrde to date. The sharp yet clean production has certainly contributed to this.
