Behind The Tracks: Chronicler Of Ardul - The Forge (Single) (2024)

"The Forge" veers away from Durmad's perspective to show what the armies go through in their quest for treasure. I decided early on that this song needed to contrast a lot from "Durmad, The Ambitious" and be this huge epic piece. One of the things that really shows this is the orchestral arrangement: there is much more brass and strings used scarcely.

There are some teases and foreshadowing right from the beginning with the viola melody being used later on as the sword is being created. From then on, it was new material that I had to write, whereas a lot of "Durmad, The Ambitious" was inspired by an orchestral piece I wrote a few years ago.

This song tells a lot in a short amount of time and is one of my favorite songs on the EP. Something that was hinted at since the end of verse 2 is the awakening of a dragon! It was so cool to add that and had to prologue the anticipation as long as possible. During that section is a flipped upside-down version of the sword theme, which was first teased in the intro to the first song.

I love a good church organ and will reserve it for epic parts and the creation of the sword is just that. Almost revered in the sound, the lyrics depict just the opposite as forbidden magic is being used to forge this thing. And finally, the full reveal of the Sword of Virné's theme, almost an omen of the terror Durmad had unleashed onto the world.

It was nice getting back into the heavier side of music with this song. "Durmad, The Ambitious" is much more melodic and has a few heavy parts, but this song gets in your face a lot more. It reminds me quite a bit of "The Corruption" from Myrewood and has some great moments in it.