The suspense builds. It's clear that the horror-flick chick is seconds away from being slashed by the maniac stealthily sneaking up behind her Ñ but she doesn't have a clue because she can't hear the soundtrack music. It's enough to make hearts pound wildly.
Twins Mark and Michael Riddick, 29, of Ashburn, are the culprits behind some of those heart racing sounds. The two have collaborated on several horror-movie soundtrack projects over the past few years, the most recent being an independent film called "Hellbound: Book of the Dead." And while they like creating the dark, ambient sounds that scare people when it's dark, their first love is the neo-medieval music they play with their band, The Soil Bleeds Black, a name derived from ancient Druid folklore about the blood of the last dragon.
THE TWINS started the band 14 years ago while they were still in high school and playing mostly heavy metal music. They said the instruments and recording equipment they started out with wasn't the most expensive or the latest and greatest, but they worked with what they had. Mark Riddick worked his way up from three months of base guitar lessons and a Gibson Epiphone to playing 10 different kinds of instruments. "I just had an urge to discover very esoteric instruments," he said. "I liked to discover new sounds to incorporate into my music and it became almost an evolutionary process to not only keep my music fresh but also to expand my horizons as a person." His brother, also mostly self-taught, plays keyboard, percussion and guitar.
Many of the instruments Mark Riddick plays are ones that were used in the Middle Ages, from which the twins draw the majority of inspiration for their melodies and lyrics.
"I thought to myself, why am I making these sounds from the Middle Ages on a synthesizer? Why don't I learn to make it more authentic," he said.
So he taught himself how to play a penny whistle, various pipe chanters, an electronic programmable bagpipe and a sham Ñ a medieval trumpet, among other instruments. The genre of music the twins play is one they say is not well known in the United States. In fact, there are only about 15 neo-medieval bands nationwide. The sound is similar to what a person might hear at a renaissance fair or in the movie "Excalibur." However, the twins said because the genre is an emerging one, a spin-off of a subculture genre called gothic industrial, there is a lot of room to be creative with it.
"It's not mainstream and it's an acquired taste for a lot of people," Mark Riddick said. "But we're playing some of the same melodies played during the Middle Ages, thousands of years later. That's got to say a lot about the human condition and what appeals to the human ear."
The twins incorporate a host of different types of instruments into their music. In addition to electric guitars and keyboard, they also use hand drums, bag pipes, recorders, pipe chanters Ñ an instrument similar to a recorder but using a reed instead of a whistle, a multi-string instrument called a dulcimer, an autoharp and a hurdy-gurdy Ñ an ancient windup piano.
Their lyrics, they said, usually come right out of the history books. Occasionally they will borrow lines from medieval poetry or manuscripts but most often the twins write their lyrics based on different medieval historical events. The album they are currently working on is based on two children's crusades of 1212 A.D. Mark Riddick said they chose the crusades because they are an historically obscure and intriguing event, which because of their tragic nature suits the dark tone of their music.
"It's a forgotten crusade that wasn't sanctioned by the church. Thousands of children either drowned at sea or were sold into Muslim slave markets," he said. "The church couldn't protect everyone, so the children were on their own and they were killed, lost or starved. There was a lot of tragedy."
THE TWINS got into the gothic industrial scene after being introduced to the underground heavy metal scene by friends and through various magazines.
"We were listening to bands you could buy in stores initially but when we were introduced to the underground music scene, there were hundreds of thousands of bands that were playing the same kind of music, who were passionate about their music because they weren't successful yet," Michael Riddick said. "We found bands we could really enjoy and appreciate."
Over time, through an underground network of other musicians and music lovers, the twins moved onto more Celtic and medieval-themed lyrics and melodies.
"We were just inspired to do something different," Michael Riddick said. "It's got a darker edge lyrically that embodies struggles about human nature, which you can find a lot of in the medieval age historically Ñ in the economy, religion, territory issues."
Even though the subject matter may be universally comprehensible, their target audience is a difficult one to reach. Most of the band's following is in Europe. In fact, Swedish label Cold Meat Industry published their first album, "The Kingdom and its Fey," 30 tracks dubbed on two 12-inch vinyl records. For them, though, it was a dream come true.
"It was our favorite label and it was very respected in its genre so it gave us a very good grounding to start with as a band," Mark Riddick said. "For the type of music we were
doing it was the best label we could've been signed with." There is an American reverence for their sound, mostly found at renaissance fairs, they said. And classical music lovers, also tend to find affection for it. But still, generating interest in their music has been a challenge for them. The twins' music is mostly played on the radio in other countries. Sometimes it's played in the United States on college stations and over the Internet but the twins don't do live performances.
"We're introverts. It's very hard for an introvert to get on stage and not be afraid to mess up," Michael Riddick said. "So we'd rather invest our time producing music rather than playing every night."
Plus the band's vocalist, Eugenia Wallace, lives in North Carolina, so all of their projects are studio collaborations. To get their music heard, the brothers use the World Wide Web. The brothers learned a lot about networking and generating interest through the underground network. When the Internet was introduced, Mark Riddick said it completely changed the underground.
"It really transformed and changed the shape of independent music. Before it was hard to get discovered and now it's accessible for anyone to enjoy," he said. "Internet music and distribution is really changing the industry. I never imagined that our music would be distributed by electric means. Never even fathomed that 10 years ago. Now it's certainly a capability."
THE BROTHERS said being twins has given them an edge in the business since they have a great working chemistry between them.
"It eases the music writing process," Michael Riddick said. "As opposed to working with a lot of people with a lot of different focuses, my brother and I have the same focus and we're able to do a lot as a result."
And so after gaining a foot in the industry, the twins started their own recording label, a venture they began four years ago.
"We had worked with so many labels, we learned how the independent record industry functioned and we had enough contacts in place to have the resources to start our own label," Michael Riddick said. "We thought it would be more practical to publish our own music and maintain control of it, rather than allowing other people to do it. The tradeoff is you put a whole lot more time and effort into it when you do it yourself."
Which for them is a big deal, since they also work full-time jobs as graphic designers. Fossil Dungeon, the twins' recording label, has signed 10 different artists since its inception. The music, which varies vocally, instrumentally and stylistically, still fits into the gothic industrial genre.