The Stargate was the first of a four-album contract
Mortiis signed with Earache. The music is rich in layered synth compositions that are as dramatic as they are morose.
Mortiis is a keyboard ghoul adept at crafting a dungeon-drone. These soundscapes immediately bring to mind the sylvan, fantasy landscape of tall, spindly, dead trees obscuring a hidden, crumbling castle. One can imagine just such a vision in
Mortiis' native Norway. From the "darkest depths of Mordor"
Mortiis summons and masters the sighing spirits (present as the voices of disembodied, female plainchanters) of ambient doom. ~ Tom Schulte