Track by track introduction!
Magnum Opus of the whole album. Song Mongols is epic 10 minutes long adventure which represents the musical and composer’s peak of the whole story concept. It is also the important part of the story of Marco Polo – after the long journey, he finally reaches the Mongolian empire.
There is an epic beginning performed by Kangling (Tibetian name for a trumpet or horn made of a human thighbone used in Himalayan Buddhism) followed by a deep mighty sound of low brass and stringed instruments.
After the symphonic introduction and typical Mongolian throat singing called Hoomai, there comes the Mongolian cavalry and crush everything under the hooves of their horses which resolves into heavy session of aggressive guitar riffs.
Most probably the heaviest song in the band´s history is driven forward by triplet bass drum cannonade and uncompromising guitar parts which resulted into monumental choral chorus.
Powerful melodic choruses are musical picture of Polo’s expedition whole-heartedly reaching their goal.
In the middle of the song there is an interlude passage where you can hear a lot of traditional instruments, such as Morin-Khuur (or MaTouQin, horse-headed fiddle, it is one of the most representative traditional cello-like Mongolian instrument) but also typical Mongolian men’s and women’s chorals, which are followed by traditional Chinese instruments, such as Daruan (stringed instrument similar to an acoustic bass guitar), Xiao (very long and thin flute with mellow, warm tone), Zhonghu (middle fiddle similar to viola), Guzheng (it is one of the oldest Chinese instrument and its name literally means „ancient harp“) and Pipa (something like Chinese Lute).
At the end of this interlude, there is a solo part on Mongolian MaTouQin and Chinese ErHu which lead into melodic guitar solo and epic chorus. The whole song ends with crushing bass drum triplets and Mongolian horses’ hooves.
„Part 5: Mongols“ appears in two different forms on the album – the full metal and the orchestral version as a CD only bonus track, where we also used a lot of ethnic percussions.
You can pre-order the album here.
Mai 4, 2022