On one hand Awaken All Myths is a very interesting album, on the other hand it is kind of ambivalent – at least to me. Founded back in 1999 by multi talent Glaufx Garland DARK RUNNER was set as synonym for nightmarish and hard music. After Unknown Master Save Us & Gently Sin they kick off the second round with Awaken All Myths to drive the willing listener mad. Musically a lot of styles got mixed up together. The matrix was built up by hard Industrial beats on which a construction of EBM, Hardcore Techno, Ambient and Trance got set up. Moreover different stylistic elements flow in, for example bagpipe tunes in the background (You’re Pathetic, This Is War!), which let you all the time prick up your ears while suggesting, these tunes come anywhere from the outside.
The nightmare gets opened up with Acheron – Hades, an instrumental part which is piling up a very dark and ominous atmosphere. It almost has kind of a soundtrack character for a really good horror film. I like it a lot. Your Hate Or Your Love Are Snowflakes In My Heart starts with kind of strange synthetic drum beats but turns into an absolutely apocalyptic Industrial crusher and is one of few songs with schizophrenic singing. The already mentioned You’re Pathetic, This Is War! is yet a mixture of Industrial and Hardcore Techno, while Departure 2 – Time Machine has these mentioned Trance and even GOA elements. In these mix of styles the entire album ranges and I have to confess that I only like these dark Industrial / EBM (Master Save Us. They Are Evil) / Ambient (From Beyond Part 2 – To H.P. Lovecraft and Stay Away) tracks. All the tracks with the others influences are not really my cup of tea.
Altogether I think Awaken All Myths has a few structural flaws. The entire shape is kind of hovering free of everything. I can’t discover any red thread which hold this album together and give it a meaning. Between the tracks you have clear breaks, no transitions, which makes every song standing for itself. It really needs abstract imaginations to pick up the single threads and knit them together to something special. But the atmosphere is very dark, ominous, oppressive and paranoid all the time. Maybe I need some chemicals to grasp the deeper sense, maybe I’m just not ready yet, to loose and get involved completely into this world.
The title track is also available as vid on the multi media part and its visualization gets accompanied by the cover artwork. You should have watched that!
Awaken All Myths has by all means its great moments and after the 10th spin some things get merged more coherent while my speakers seem to fall into pieces.
Anyway DARK RUNNER is worthy to get checked out and of course, I’ll keep my eyes on them!

Dark Runner