"The region we are going to explore is called the Ash Mountains. Also known as Ered Lithui, they form the northern border of Mordor. On our way from Rohan, we bypass the Dead Marshes, then ride through Dagorland until we reach this barren and inhospitable area. A land shunned by the Elves…" Read more in the lyric section of Track 1. Text inspired By Tolkien, but also, and even more, adapted from Luis Bunuel’s Tierra Sin Pan (Land without Bread), a controversial documentary portrait of Las Hurdes, a miserable region of Spain in the years before the Civil War. In my mind, fact and fiction began to merge and Las Hurdes and the Ash Mountains became one.

All music by Amon Obel except “ Land Without Elves ” by Steve Jammes, initially entitled “Under a Yew” on the album Hellfire by Modern Funeral Art. Here and there (find out where!), a few measures may have been borrowed from the song “Mordor” by Running Wild. Artwork by Unexpected Specter(www.instagram.com/unexpectedspecter).

released December 31, 2021