All have lyrics from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings; some of the tracks are spoken word; the remainder are songs with musical settings composed by Peter Hall or Caspar Reiff, the Ensemble's founders.

[3][4][5] Michael Cunningham of The Tolkien Society praises Christopher Lee's voicework, conveying something of a solemn mood, echoing "the old northern spirit in the face of inexorable doom".

[1] Grey Walker, for the Green Man Review, found the musicianship "of the highest possible standard",[6] with classically trained voices and outstanding instrumentalists, but gave the album "mixed reactions".

By contrast, Walker found the happy "hobbit-ish" songs perfect, complete with the "rollicking mirth" of Øyvind Ougaard [da]'s accordion and Tom McEwen's entertaining percussion effects.

In his view, Helen Davies's Irish harp would have delighted Tolkien, exactly matching his description of Elvish music in his poem "Kortirion among the Trees": "for thin and clear and cold the note, as strand of silver glass remote".