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Holle Mangler — Tales from a Fairyworld - Part II
(Bandcamp Bonimedia no#, 2025, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-01-10

Tales from a Fairyworld - Part II Cover art

Holle Mangler is a German composer from Bergheim working in electronic soundscapes for several decades. His recent work has evolved into a form of keyboard based progressive rock. He also has a side project called Frau Holle that focuses on trance, house and synth-pop styles, but what he releases under his own name has more in common with Jarre, Vangelis, and other similarly inclined artists in a more keyboard driven symphonic rock style. The first part of this work, Tales from a Fairy World, was released in 2021, and is similar in concept overall though the rock element sometimes veers a little closer to metal, and it does contain some vocals — a spoken introductory piece and occasional female vocals on a couple other tracks, sometimes sung through a vocoder. Now to further confuse things, that album features the exact same cover art as the album currently under review here, Tales from a Fairy World – Part II, which was just released earlier in 2025, though that’s where the similarities end, as Part II seems to be a more purely electronic endeavor, with five of the ten tracks clocking in at over ten minutes. Right out of the gate, “The Sorcerer” offers a catchy, bouncy groove with some interesting hooks, a little guitar here and there for expressive power, but mostly layers of synths amid a purely instrumental (as is the whole album) and unconventional song structure, shifting gears with regularity. Eleven minutes later we move into “Staring into the Eyes of Death,” another eleven-minute epic, this time a bit darker and twisted, but laced with colorful melodic fragments that all come together beautifully across multiple sections, including a very spacy nightmare section with grotesque laughing around the piece’s midpoint. Other tracks of note include “Page 21,” which features a strong progressive rock base with synth leads a bit reminiscent of Gary Numan, “Funeral for an Oath,” another multi-part epic that features a powerful set of themes that morph throughout its duration, and the thirteen-minute “Gathering of the Council of Elders,” opening with some sampled choral voices chanting that quickly blend with a powerful rock drive and an unforgettable synth melody, slowly ratcheting up the symphonics over its duration. The brief “Outro” has no spoken words like the “Intro” did on the earlier Fairy World, but one can probably conclude that there won’t be any more parts after this one, and a powerful set this is, it should be of interest to any listeners who appreciate the power of rock fused with keyboard symphonics.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Holle Mangler

More info
http://www.hollemangler.de/tales_from_a_fairyworld.html

 

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