Review: Dorian Lynch – The Alchemist: Dark Arts of the Forrest

Style: shred guitar, “prog” “metal” (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Owane, Plini, Yngwie Malmsteen, Jason Becker
Review by: Andy
Country: Canada
Release date: 19 July 2023

231 years ago, Joseph Haydn premiered his Symphony No. 94, colloquially the Surprise Symphony. As legend has it, Haydn was weary of his audiences falling asleep during his symphonies–though for anybody familiar with much of Haydn’s vast body of work, who can really blame them?–so he included a fortissimo chord at the end of the piano theme of 94’s second movement, “Andante,” to essentially jump-scare the listener awake. Fast forward to 2023, and Dorian Lynch shreds on his guitar with all the bravado of the most soporific of Haydn’s extensive corpus. The Alchemist: Dark Arts of the Forrest piques my interest as much as an attempted OD on melatonin. The album is like the chloroform rag trope of a crime thriller. 
In a genre where instrumental talent is a given, Dorian Lynch can rip scales at blistering speeds and sustain pretty notes with a pleasing guitar tone: He has talent. But as that’s the lowest possible bar for shred, I’m not impressed by the endless wankery. It’s no longer 1984, and Rising Force isn’t the pinnacle of instrumental achievement. Worse than the stream of guitar wankery is the noticeable lack of a powerful low end in the mindless rhythm section, something which could have been the much needed jolt to awaken me from my slumber. The bass–when it’s even present–packs as much punch as a pillow; and the obviously programmed drums are hypnagogic they change so infrequently–though Dorian Lynch’s programmed drums still sound better than Lars does on the new Metallica, take that how you will.

“Beyond the Chapel of Doom” begins with the most memorable melody on the album, and the descending solos are clearly articulated. But even the best track on the album ends with a frustrating little fadeout, and the synths in the track sound incredibly tacky, cheap like a mattress with too many springs. I want some memory foam tempur pedic if I’m forced to suffer through this album, dammit! That little fadeout ending isn’t exclusive to “Beyond the Chapel of Doom,” unfortunately. All four tracks just kinda cease to be without a properly written ending, making the end product feel frustratingly unpolished and lazy. The Alchemist is the result of a talented musician’s jam session, not a triumph of songwriting. 

The epic title track finale breaks an imperative rule I didn’t know I had for shred… shred shalt not have spoken word acoustic intros. It bears repeating: SHRED SHALT NOT HAVE SPOKEN WORD ACOUSTIC INTROS!! How am I supposed to nap through crappy narration? Lynch is so close to being self aware, too. On his Bandcamp he states, “I could bore you with the story of the song at the end but in all honesty it boils down to me shredding my face off and sweating because of it so it really doesn’t matter.” He’s right it doesn’t really matter, surely, but it’s because I’m bored by him shredding his face off for nearly eighteen minutes like he thinks he’s First Fragment or something. His shred mostly consists of scale and legato practice, and the transitions between sections in the epic are particularly egregious. The completely detached sections skip into one another as if in a weird fever dream sequence. I think with a more careful thematic throughline, the track could have been at least mildly interesting, but it’s frankly the blandest thing I can imagine, lacking in both cohesion and songwriting ability. Even the solos are pedestrian for the genre, not adding anything of value to the guitar canon. 

And that’s the problem with Dorian Lynch. I’ve heard a lot of truly awful stuff recently like Enopolis and The Dark Atom, but apathy is the true opposite of love–not hate–and I feel so utterly apathetic to this album I’d rather take a nap. Calling an album truly boring is the meanest, most critical thing I can really do as a reviewer, and Dorian Lynch is boring. The Alchemist: Dark Arts of the Forrest is bland shred done lazily without proper care put into the final product, be it the non-guitar instrumentation, the transitions, or the song endings. For his sake, I hope he can find his Haydn jump-scare and write his personal 94th as a follow-up, doing anything of note rather than faltering in The Alchemist’s sea of uninspired shred.

Recommended tracks: Beyond the Chapel of Doom
You may also like: Conquering Dystopia, First Fragment
Final verdict: 3/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: independent

Dorian Lynch is:
– Dorian Lynch (everything)