Quest Master and Fief at the First Unitarian Church

 In March of 2024, I was fortunate to be able to attend Northeast Dungeon Siege, a small music festival in Worcester, Massachusetts which is dedicated to the musical genre of Dungeon Synth. For those unfamiliar, the genre consists of fantasy ambient music largely performed via synthesizers. It takes its root from the instrumental interludes featured in Black Metal from the early 1990s. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend Northeast Dungeon Siege this year, as tickets sold out almost immediately (while it is still a niche musical genre, it is rapidly finding new fans, as evidenced by the quick ticket sales).One of the highlights for me from Northeast Dungeon Siege 2024 was Quest Master, an Australian dungeon synth artist, and much to my delight I learned he was going on tour in the United States in March of this year, and he was going to be stopping in Philadelphia. This tour was leading up to his return visit to perform in this year’s Northeast Dungeon Siege! 

Cap'n Jazz - Basil’s Kite

I have talked about the genre Midwest Emo quite a few times over the years, and if there is one band that helped codify what Midest Emo is all about, it is Cap'n Jazz from Buffalo Grove, Illinois. The band consisted of a collection of high school friends making energetic and haphazard punk music that always sounded like it was on the verge of falling apart. Tim Kinsella’s vocal style was a combination of amateurish singing, shouting, and talking, expressing a surrealistic stream-of-conscious wordplay. Instrumentally, Cap'n Jazz was a combination of jangly and melodic guitar lines, occasionally punctuated by a rapid tempo change or a burst of guitar virtuosity, with the rhythm section just barely holding it all together. The band only released a single full length album, the ridiculously titled Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We’ve Slipped on and Egg Shells We’ve Tippy-Toed Over (often referred to as Schmap’n Schmazz), before breaking up in 1995 during their first tour due to drug issues with their guitarist, Victor Villarreal. Despite the band’s short existence, they were the template for what has become Midwest Emo. A remastered version of Schmap’n Schmazz was just released in 2025 to celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary, and the band is getting back together to play a few shows in June and July of 2025.

Conan - Hawk as Weapon

When imagining a band name suitable for a fantasy-themed doom metal band, it is hard to beat “Conan”. Conan the Cimmerian, the barbarian from Robert E. Howard’s short stories and a hallmark of sword and sorcery stories, is the perfect imagery to associate with a heavily down-tuned doom/sludge metal band. The band Conan is a three piece doom metal band founded in 2006 by Jon Davis, and their monstrously heavy music fit the name perfectly. As a band, they shirk the notion of guitar solos. No, Conan are a band that thrive on slow, plodding riffs, both the guitar and the bass flowing in monolithic unison. This is music to be played loudly, where you can feel each chord rumble. Jon Davis’ vocal style sounds almost as if he is shouting across a canyon, fitting perfectly with the reverberating riffs.

Camping in Alaska - Turncoat

I first came across the Midwest Emo group Camping in Alaska via a YouTube recommendation. Their mixture of melodic guitar lines and whiny vocals, occasionally punctuated by impassioned shouting, really struck a chord with me. Despite having Alaska in their name, the band is from Huntsville, Alabama, having formed when Austin Davis (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) and Jacob Stewart (drums) were only 15 years old. They released their first album, please be nice, in 2013 when they were still teenagers. In the next three years they released two other albums, BATHE (2014) and WELCOME HOME SON (2016), before dissolving due to the band struggling with drug addiction. Fortunately, the band reformed in 2023 to release a 3 song EP called Hollow Eyes. And now, in the final days of 2024, they have released their latest full length record, Eggbeater Jesus! The name and album art is derived from a mural of Jesus on the First Baptist Church Huntsville, where Jesus’ robes look suspiciously like a whirling eggbeater.

Witch Bolt - The Peace of Wild Things

Dungeon Synth is getting harder and harder to keep up with, as there seems to be a flood of new projects every week. Case in point, the Kentucky-based Dungeon Synth artist Witch Bolt first started putting music into the world in July of 2024, and in that time has released more than 10 albums/EPs (though, this may have been music they had recorded over a few years and just now decided to release). I barely had the time to take in the release of Witch Bolt’s autumnal album Howl in September, before being confronted with a new EP in November, The Peace of Wild Things. Despite just entering the Dungeon Synth scene this year, Witch Bolt seems to have arrived fully formed: not only is the music nuanced and expansive, the accompanying artwork is wonderful, complementing the work and helping to set the listener’s mind to wander. The color choice on each of the album covers is excellent, as is all of the artwork. Witch Bolt is fairly active on the r/DungeonSynth message board on Reddit, and it is from there that I learned that they do all of the artwork themselves. They clearly have a talent for graphical design!

Chat Pile - No Way Out

2024 has been filled with great albums by amazing artists (Micah Schnabel, Man’s Gin, The Jesus Lizard, Lonesome Shack, to name just a few), though the album I was most anticipating was the sophomore release from the Oklahoma noise rock band Chat Pile. I have written about them numerous times before on this blog, including just last month, clearly illustrating my excitement about the band’s work. They have a knack for portraying the horrors of the modern world in a way that does not feel exploitative, but in a way that actually feels unsettling. Much of their work has focused on the suffering of small town America, though their new record, Cool World, has turned their lens outward towards the suffering of the world. In the words of Chat Pile’s vocalist Raygun Busch, “it’s just a big anti-war statement, the whole album – every song is about how much I hate war. Man’s greatest shame.”  

Chat Pile - King

I have now written about Chat Pile, Oklahoma City’s noise rock upstarts, a few times. Their brand of extreme music borrows more from the noisy punk rock of Big Black than it does heavy metal. And much like Big Black, Chat Pile uses their music to examine the decrepitude of smalltown America, highlighting the suffering and the vulgarity that can often accompany life there. Shortly after the success of their first full length album, God’s Country, in 2022, Chat Pile released a split record with Kansas City’s Nerver, called Brothers in Christ. On the split, Chat Pile experimented with sounds indebted to alternative rock bands like Slint and Guide by Voices, while not losing their trademark gloom.