From the Vault: Summoning - Stronghold

Band: Summoning
Album: Stronghold
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Country: Austria
Label: Napalm Records
Released: May 11, 1999

Introduction:

Summoning, the long-running Austrian duo of Richard “Protector” Lederer and Michael “Silenius” Gregor, occupy a unique position in the history of black metal. Emerging in the early 1990s alongside the second wave of the genre, they quickly diverged from its orthodox form. Instead of aggression, they sought atmosphere; instead of satanic revolt, they found inspiration in myth and melancholy. Drawing heavily from the legendarium of J.R.R. Tolkien, Summoning reshaped black metal into something closer to musical world-building, an auditory reconstruction of the landscapes, histories, and emotions that haunt Middle-earth.

Their use of programmed percussion, layered keyboards, and synths created what could be described as an epic minimalism: a sound that feels vast. Not through speed or density, but rather through its repetition and scope. Summoning’s influence on the genre of atmospheric and epic black metal as a whole is impossible to overstate. Transforming what black metal could be: not merely shrieked rage and lo-fi assault, but rather an expansive mythic tapestry.

Stronghold

Track Listing:

1. Rhûn
2. Long Lost to Where No Pathway Goes
3. The Glory Disappears
4.Like Some Snow-white Marble Eyes
5. Where Hope and Daylight Die
6. The Rotting Horse on the Deadly Ground
7. The Shadow Lies Frozen on the Hills
8. The Loud Music of the Sky
9. A Distant Flame Before the Sun

Released in 1999 through Napalm Records, Stronghold represents a moment of refinement and consolidation for Summoning’s craft. Where their earlier albums such as Dol Guldur (1996) reveled in hazy ambience, Stronghold is more direct, with a stronger guitar presence and more clearly defined song structures. Yet the band’s trademark atmosphere remains: glacial tempos, reverbed vocals, and sweeping keyboard arrangements that seem to stretch toward the horizon.

As with their previous works, Tolkien’s influence permeates nearly every aspect of Stronghold. Yet rather than direct adaptation, Summoning treats Tolkien’s writings as a mythopoetic vocabulary. They borrow fragments of text, tone, and imagery, reinterpreting them to fit their own vision of grandeur and decay. By weaving these textual threads into their compositions, Summoning achieves something rare in metal: not a mere homage to Tolkien, but a re-contextualization of his themes.

They transpose Middle-earth’s mythic sorrow into sound: cold winds over stone battlements, banners unfurling in orange dusk, the echo of ancient horns.

The inclusion of cinematic samples (from Braveheart and Legend) adds a layer of mythological universality, connecting Tolkien’s world to the broader archetype of heroic tragedy. Just as Tolkien drew inspiration from Norse and Anglo-Saxon myth, Summoning draws from the mythic imagery of popular culture to extend the emotional resonance of their sound.

Conclusion:

Stronghold endures as one of Summoning’s most profound statements: a confluence of black metal’s raw emotionality and Tolkien’s mythological grandeur. Summoning did not merely adapt Tolkien’s lore; they translated its spirit into aural form. Where Tolkien wrote of the inevitable fading of beauty, Summoning translates that lament into sound. Their music is the echo of Númenor beneath the waves, the fading light of Valinor across the sea, the quiet endurance of the Dúnedain in exile. Stronghold thus stands not only as a cornerstone of atmospheric black metal, but as one of the most thoughtful and resonant musical engagements with Tolkien’s mythology ever produced.

BMZ Rating: 10 out of 10

You can support the band here: https://summoning.bandcamp.com/album/stronghold-2

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