Graham Reynolds draws on dungeon-synth textures, medieval ambience and folklore on The Portcullis, a record that plays like a lost fantasy soundtrack. Released via Fire Records, it unfolds as a focused passage through shifting eras, symbols and imagined histories. The album began as a personal excavation. Reynolds traced his patrilineal line from his grandfather, an ironworker who built Hartford Cathedral, through a Welsh galley cook ancestor and the Enlightenment portraitist Joshua Reynolds, back to twelfth-century Richard Reynell – Sheriff of Devon and custodian of Launceston Castle. While Richard I was away on crusade, Reynell defended the castle against Prince John, securing his place in local history. From these stories, Reynolds sketched scenes and built compositions that follow Reynell from castle to castle in the wake of the Norman invasion. The family crest – the portcullis – becomes both symbol and guiding image. Known for scoring more than seventy films and television episodes, including longstanding work with Richard Linklater, Reynolds here creates a stark, atmospheric sound world that feels at once ancient and vividly imagined.