Album Review: Dodenskald – Temple of Angra Maniyu

Artist: Dodenskald
Title: Temple of Angra Maniyu
Label: Noctivagant
Release date: December 21st, 2025
Country: Iran/Japan
Format reviewed: High-quality digital recording

Album Review: Dodenskald – Temple of Angra Maniyu via Noctivagant Collective by Pegah

The Tokyo-based Iranian artist Dodenskald released “Temple of Angra Maniyu” at the same time as the beginning of the protests in Iran. According to Zoroastrianism, “Angra Mainyu” refers to the destructive spirit in Avestan — the demonic counterpart of Ahura Mazda. Symbolically, it can be seen as reflecting what Iran is facing these days: the struggle between good and evil. The cover art, depicting Mount Damavand — the highest peak in Iran — stands as a symbol of resistance and persistence, foreshadowing a work where myth and modern reality collide through sound.

An atmospheric and immersive opening slowly dissolves into a wind-like current, carrying whispers that seem to echo from beyond the mountains, before unfolding into a dreamlike soundscape — a fragile light that hints at the possibility of change. The next track, “57”, gestures toward the year of the revolution and the quiet rupture between past and present, its textures steeped in doubt, oppression, and the lingering cold that followed. “Angra Maniyu”,with its cold, beating pulse, feels like a dark shadow steadily expanding until it swallows Ahura Mazda. The following track introduces a spoken-word piece by the Iranian poet Fereydun Moshiri, performed in his own voice — a lament for the past intertwined with a fragile hope that Iran may one day return to its former glory. The poem closes with the lines:

One day from over the mountains,

As the sun, I will chant the poem of victory.

And I know one day

You will return…

The second part of the album begins with “Kasravi’s Dream”, referring to Ahmad Kasravi, the Iranian historian, linguist, and theologian. The soundscape grows heavy and haunting, carried by spoken words from a female narrator. As the track reaches its end, it feels like a warning — the sense of an approaching danger, a shift already set in motion. With “Zahāk”, the tempo slows, centering on a figure who embodies evil in Iranian mythology. In the Avesta and Zoroastrian tradition, where he appears under the name Aži Dahāka, he is described as the offspring of Ahriman — the adversary of Ahura Mazda, though ultimately subordinate to him. Zahāk is remembered as a tyrannical king who killed his people to feed the serpents growing from his shoulders. This mythological figure stands as a symbol of absolute corruption and violence. Then in “Oppression”, the soundscape feels epic, like the announcement of a war — or a signal of resistance and protest against the current situation, echoing what the people of Iran are enacting today as an act of collective defiance. “Nothingness We See” closes the album with a haunting soundscape that embodies the darkness of the present moment; a sudden scream tears through the silence, the voice of the helpless echoing into emptiness… 8/10

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8/10 To Greatness and Glory!
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