''Darklore Manor'' is the debut album by

neoclassical darkwave Dark wave, or darkwave, is a music genre that emerged from the new wave and post-punk movement of the late 1970s. Dark wave compositions are largely based on minor key tonality and introspective lyrics and have been perceived as being dark, rom ...

musical duo Nox Arcana. It released on December 15, 2003 on the Monolith Graphics label. It features a style of music that bears a similarity to

Joseph Vargo Nox Arcana is the American neoclassical dark wave, dark ambient musical project of Joseph Vargo. It was founded in 2003 as a duo with William Piotrowski, who left in 2008 to pursue a career in film score composing but still acts as its studio en ...

's earlier work on the album '' Born of the Night'' with

Midnight Syndicate Midnight Syndicate is an American musical duo that has been working primarily in the genre of Neoclassicism (music), neoclassical dark ambient music since 1997 in music, 1997 and is based in Chardon, Ohio, Chardon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Oh ...

, ato establish in 1998 prior to his founding of Nox Arcana.

Musical style

The music on ''Darklore Manor'' consists of

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

, with vocal choirs and brief ghostly narrations that invite the listener to "embark on a musical journey throughout the haunted halls of a Victorian mansion". The accompanying booklet features a history about the Darklore family and their "stark and grim abode" of which its "former splendor was lost to the ravages of time" and where "spirits of the dead do not rest easy." This album was inspired by a real-life

haunted house A haunted house, spook house or ghost house in ghostlore is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were otherwise connected with the property ...

located near

Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore (Massachusetts), North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem was one ...

, an old Victorian mansion built in 1889. According to local legend, a curse befell the Darklore family, resulting in many mysterious deaths. Then in 1941, the last of the bloodline, Damon Darklore, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Belladonna disappeared without any explanation. Over the years, the abandoned Darklore Manor became a local haunt, something to scare kids on

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

and a place for daring teenagers to hang out. In 1968, three teens disappeared after holding a seance there on Halloween. The old manor finally burned to the ground in 1971. ''Darklore Manor'' has inspired others to create haunted houses using the music and storyline as the basis for their Halloween attractions, including the

Busch Gardens Busch Gardens is the name of two amusement parks in the United States, owned and operated by United Parks & Resorts. The original park is in Tampa, Florida, and the second park is in Williamsburg, Virginia. There were also previously Busch G ...

"Howl-O-Scream" theme park in Tampa, Florida, which features a haunted wedding with Darklore Manor as the setting and atmosphere. Expanding upon the haunted house story created for this album's liner notes, Joseph Vargo wrote a novella entitled "The Legend of Darklore Manor." It appears among 12 other short horror stories in the book ''The Legend of Darklore Manor and Other Tales of Terror.''.

Track listing

# "Legend" — 1:49 # "Darklore Manor" — 2:27 # "Threshold of the Dead" — 1:18 # "Trespassers" — 2:52 # "Veil of Darkness" — 1:55 # "Sanctuary of Shadows" — 3:12 # "The Grande Hall" — 1:55 # "Remnants" — 2:06 # "Phantom Procession" — 1:46 # "Belladonna" — 2:41 # "Nursery Rhyme" — 0:40 # "Music Box" — 2:08 # "The Forgotten" — 2:44 # "Nightmare" — 1:56 # "No Rest for the Wicked" — 3:12 # "Omen" — 0:43 # "Seance" — 2:56 # "Beyond Midnight" — 3:04 # "Darkness Immortal" — 3:39 # "Incantation" — 1:55 # "Resurrected" — 7:13 * The song "Resurrected" ends at 2:15. An untitled

hidden track In the field of recorded music, a hidden track (sometimes called a ghost track, secret track or unlisted track) is a song or a piece of audio that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, LP record, or other recorded medium, in such a way as t ...

starts at 4:25.

References

External links

Nox Arcana's official website
* ''Darklore Manor''at

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

{{Authority control Nox Arcana albums Halloween albums 2003 debut albums