A Forest of Stars - Beware the Sword You Cannot See [2015]

Lately there's been an ongoing fetish in the black market concerning the dissection and integration of elements derived from 70's psychedelic rock bands, and to be honest, while this does not sound like a favorable coitus of genres at first, a trend which has engendered bands like Hail Spirit Noir and Oranssi Pazuzu can be hardly be chastised for lacking proficiency or being unambitious. Of course, the marriage of 70's psychedelia with black metal does require eccentricities of sorts, which is why even though we dub then as psychedelic black metal, each of these bands, as well as England's A Forest of Stars more or less enjoy a uniqueness under their own roof. A Forest of Stars' fourth offering ''Beware the Sword You Cannot See'' hits all the sweet spots for an eclectic heavy metal listener, a steampunk aficionado, a Victorian gentlemen, a comic Dickensian figure straight out of Bleak House, and a spiritualistic preacher of sorts, since it's likely to be one of the weirdest yet absorbingly idiosyncratic releases I've heard this year along with Solefald's ''World Music'', chock full of kooky inventiveness and immersive musical talent.

If you don't believe me, just have a look at the pseudonyms: one Titus Longbutter or T.S. Kettleburner certainly feels redolent of a Dickens novel, the bizarre parade of folk, autumnal psychedelia and gloomy black metal impressionism doesn't even begin there. From it's melancholy opener ''Drawing Down the Rain'' the band seems to be on the verge of a progressive black metal phantom in the mode of Enslaved with fairly simplistic melodies, but they immediately fill up the empty spaces with folksy flutes which beckons a far more pagan taste, say, similar to one Kroda, Drudkh or Arkona; but I love the fact that the group can shift through their own 7+ minute songs like quicksand, evolving once again into a hazily progressive riff and then into a meteor shower of unfrazed tremolos headed by melodic psychedelia. These Victorians are unhinged but it doesn't stop the music from evocatively drawing up imagery and queer, almost Gothic constellations and fragmentary journeys across the firmament. The opener is by far the most 'atmospheric' advent in the entire album, fostered by somber chords and almost minimalistic melody patterns, but the following two songs, ''Hive Mindless'' and ''A Blaze of Hammers'' are just as consuming pieces, and the group, thankfully does not omit a few pauses in between the marathons by adding a few stringy chords and clean guitar sequences glazed with nearly defunct violins and keyboard scores. They do take some time to get to the point, true, and not everything (especially in the first half of the album) is bound to grab you by your neck and slam you to the ground and leave you agog with sensation, but the material presented is celestial and beautiful to say the least.

Of course it would be a capital offense to exclude the vocalist Mister Curse who practically spearheads the benignly confusing effusion of sounds with his remarkable voice. We're not even talking regular singing here: he feels more as though he's reciting poetry in a remarkably 'English' manner, exquisite oratory that reminds me of Bal-Sagoth and their fantastical vocal shenanigans with similarly cosmic subjects in mind. Katheryne, Queen of Ghosts also handles female vocals here, a soothing and rich fairy-metal vox not unlike Nightwish or the operatic female vocals in Therion's later outings, but what I truly enjoy is that they supplement the harsher, brazen discourse of the male vocals with a maudlin alternative. Mister Curse, of course, engages in a more unruly inflection from time to time to complement fuzzier discharges of fairly straightforward Scandinavian tremolo work, like a well-attuned Victorian gentleman suddenly devolving into beast-mode. The second half of the album, which I probably enjoyed more than the first, is split into numerical parts. Not only are all the songs shorter in this half but they flow in and out of each other like a lengthy piece diced into smaller fragments: ''Part I: Mindslide'' begins with a moving vocal solo by Katheryne, and then into morphs into a haunting, hypnotic orgy of buzzing synthesizers redolent of John Carpenter's solo compositions and horror scores with ''Have You Got A Light, Boy?'', my favorite song on the entire album, which unfolds entirely with the words and there WAS light! before ''Perdurabo'', with its equally Gothic and alienating synthesizer swell, begins. But keep in mind that no single instrument truly steals the show here, ever. While the violins or singular keyboards may be to the fore on some of the rainier moments on the album, and the lapsing, flickering psychedelic guitar riffs during some other sequences, it's a surprisingly healthy balance of a canopy of instruments and endeavors in a rather 'unhealthy' album which makes it such a pleasure to listen to ,without anything running dry.

The sheer scope and autumnal drapery offered by ''Beware the Sword You Cannot See'' is enormous. Picturesque vistas and celestial serpents devouring their own tails. Imaginary soundscapes that could have easily fitted Mervyn Peake's masterpiece Gormenghast. The conceptual enigmas of the record, however, are just the cherry on top as far as the music goes, since this album is bound to be the new best thing for black metal, at least in my book. Not every moment is mesmerizing, and I really felt they could have trimmed the songs a little, - especially those in the first half - but the emotive, paranoid atmosphere offered, both lyrically and musically, is nothing short of delightful when it comes to the few outstanding tracks to be found, and certainly this is far more captivating tapestry of autumn leaves and starry auras than so many other 'atmospheric' black metal bands claim to possess. Instead of bludgeoning us to submission through tired, colorless monotone, these illustrious connoisseurs of the genre are inviting us into the celestial sphere and their mountable worms, alluring from a distance, beckoning with nocturnal beauty. Excellent.

Highlights:
A Blaze of Hammers
Virtus Sola Invicta

Have You Got A Light, Boy?
An Automaton Adrift

Rating: 87%

Frosttide - Blood Oath [2015]

It's hard not to accept folk metal's hit or miss status given how protean a genre it could be, with so many bands incorporating it into sturdier sounds that usually revolve around melodic death or black metal. Folk metal's intrinsic hasn't quite been acknowledged as a separate sound dialing its own unique pool of musical elements, but has been consistently favored by bands ranging from Ensiferum to Drudkh. So in essence there isn't really a record or band which I'd cite as the apex of the folk genre, although a few acts like Finntroll come pretty close. Long story short, its obliqueness is what makes new outfits into the field rather hard to categorize or affiliate with other motifs. Hence Finland's Frosttide becomes a rather generic entrant into the folklore derby, with a nice bucolic theme set against an expansive sound that somehow joins the epic formulations of Ensiferum, Wintersun and Turisas in a rustic melting pot of overripe synthesizers and thrusting melodeath rhythms. ''Blood Oath'' chugs at the same kind of folk imagery which the aforementioned bands had already perfected a decade ago, though its instantaneous appeal of 'rural battle metal', campfires, autumn leaves and wintry breezes is for me, as it has always been, a bit hard to ignore.

''Blood Oath'' initiates with the assumption that a little Ensiferum or Wintersun emulation should never go amiss. To wit, the pulpy, synthesizer-induced ''Prologue'' is simultaneously one of the most exciting sonic deliveries of the album and a frolicking number which, I imagine, managed to get quite a few dungeon synth/D&D fans hard against its epic unfolding. ''Blood Oath'' doesn't have a whole lot of tricks up its sleeves, and the primary formula seems to be a rough, headlong barrage of melodic death tremolos and fierce chords playing out next to a fluid current of melody, perhaps redolent of Amorphis, and no matter these Fins are doing, they've always got a barrage of dreamy synthesizers for you. With the vocals at the fore, the band manages to pull off powerfully emitting tracks  like the 8-minute ''Gates of Asylum'' which combines all these elements with somewhat Wagnerian overtures plummeting and cascading. The vocals are rabid, but they pose a primary problem: while the variation between harsher growls and folksy anthems is one that I appreciate, the growls never captivated me to the extent that Ensiferum did, and the group shouts were buried under the mix to be heard effectively. Yet despite this the band seems to be on the verge of some tempo mastery; coordinated past-picked sections mold into moving interludes which break out into awesome choruses. So there's plenty of spurious fun to had here.

I also admired the range of the band's folk influences which weren't just confined to ballistic synthesizers/violins but a broader palette of instruments including pianos, eerily pleasing flutes and others which the band members must have all been familiar by now. To be sure, there's enough melody, percussive melodic death metal and metallic coitus running through this record to rectify the removal of the 'pagan' or black metal tag which folk bands are so frequently infatuated. If any distinction must be made within folk bands it should be the division of more atmospheric acts like Arkona, Drudkh, Windir and Moonsorrow, and other, arguably more accessible bands like Frosttide, Ensiferum and Wintersun. But enough digression. ''Frosttide'' does possess the essential elements to be in the latter group, but ''Blood Oath'' is by no means an ambitious sophomore, nor one that sticks to mind even after half a dozen listens. For one thing, I found the rhythm section on this record to be quite lacking, and the blast beat sequences like on the beginnings of ''Traitor Within'' or ''Blood Oath'' felt out of place. There is an enjoyable lead section and the overall coherence of the instruments deserves some praise with a fairly dense spectacle of sounds bursting out at the same time, but I felt myself far more attracted to the synthesizers and aural majesty of the album than its guitars or vocals. By the 5th track I felt these guys were in need of a break, and the superfluous, 11-minute ''New Reign'' did not justify this. And in case you wanted more, there are two bonus tracks? Um, no thanks, I'm good. So clearly, this isn't a record without its faults, and ones, in this this tenuously busy modern metal market, that aren't easy to correct. Nevertheless, if you have something going for 'fairy metal' (but without the female vocals) or just some pastoral, melodic frivolity, have at it.

Highlights:
Traitor Within
The Gates of Asylum
Prologue 

Rating: 63%

Gris - À l'âme Enflammée, l'äme Constellée... [2013]

Though the notion of lengthy musical journeys has often had a magical kind of appeal to me, so few bands actually possess the ability and flair to mete out the level of color, intrigue and hooks required to keep the listener at the edge of his/her seat throughout the in time the prospect has dissolved into a weary, fruitless idea. The problem is that despite so many bands plunging into the same otherwordly sounds and emotional undercurrents, very, very few can produce a layer of musicality that not just worthwhile but also memorable enough to firmly seat itself in the listener's subconscious. Granted that, there's extensive scope of sounds one can choose from; whether it be a soundscape of daemonic sufferance, swelling bucolic beauty dawning upon a rustic, natural expanse, or, as the Canadian label Sepulchral Productions has grown so fond of, ebbing and flooding tides of anger, repentance and gnawing sorrow conveyed in various ways... The Quebecois have now a wide belt of offerings in which they can present this particular form of music, with some of my favorites over the years being Neige Eternelle and Sombres Forets, but their countrymen Gris, with the follow-up to the highly acclaimed ''Il Etait Un Foret...'' has won me over almost effortlessly compared to its counterparts.

To be sure, Sombres Forets' last two albums were erudite and brilliant showings of what Quebecois black metal can take the form of when confined to an icy, uninhabited landscape, with orchestral and acoustic motives almost as overwhelmingly terrific as the guitars, but Gris beats them all... It's rather ironic how among all the label's releases I spun the Gris record last - and I'm aware of the grave mistake. The album is a megalith in its own right, split into two individual 40-minute CDs with 5 tracks each, but there's so much to feed from and harness into one's own emotions that I find it difficult to put it in the same context as the other bands with their purportedly ''megalithic'' albums. With the axiom of atmospheric black metal and acoustic sentimentality firmly established and accepted, Gris wastes no time in applying its non-metal influences into a peripheral metal record. The dust-caked paean in its ceremonial stance may serve as some indicator on what the record has in store, but even the beauty of the statue is merely a fragment of the bliss that awaits in the arms of the record's woe-torn arms...

The music, bound to evoke a feeling of reveries and haunting illusions in the listener, naturally retains a suitable length, but acoustic and ambient interludes protrude from every square corner of the album; and we're not just talking simple acoustic interludes and cheesy outros/intros. The guitars start creeping up with elegiac beauty, subtly accompanied by orchestral sounds and even female vocal samples occasionally popping up; but the really plangent sound is derived from a series of screaming, folksy violins snapping loose at arbitrary points. Imagine the crepuscular charm and coaxing effect of those marvelous violins! Embittered little children wailing over their lost mother. A group mournful angels with their teardrops slowly falling on mankind. And Gris, unlike so many other bands which try to incorporate similar styles, does not tussle and overdo the musicality of the violins and acoustic guitars. Everything is nearly immaculately balanced, coordinated, yet plangent and natural. With the opener ''L'aube'' already delving into cavern of stars and sorrow in a brief of 4 minutes without the real bulk of the album even giving a hint of its existence, ''À l'âme Enflammée...'' already makes the statement that it's here to linger.

And once the phenomenal ''Les Forges'' ends, the listener is sufficiently enthralled and addicted to eagerly make the remainder of the album. It's true that the tracks that make up the bulk of the record, being lengthy, invest more or less the same patterns of chord progressions and swells, but this hardly seems to matter with the orchestral work looming over the guitar riffs. And, in addition, the riffs are still diverse enough to bloom into any one of traditional post-rock riffing, progressive black metal, or just crude, dauntless raw black metal, taking any form of the genre as long as it hovers in the realms of sheer, unrelenting pain and emotion. What I love about the guitars it that they seem to avoid both the primordial posture that retrogression has so unabashedly promulgated, and the metallic sound that many modern black metal acts give in to. You can hear the distortion well enough, but it doesn't meander or buzz around as if melting away as the carnal, guttural barks of the vocalist sear through. Speaking of which, the vocalist is just as terrific as any other component of the album. His raw howls are not just wretched, but charged with the same emotional exactitude as the guitars and the unnervingly surreal violins... and they even rarely seep into the acoustic interludes. The idyllic, yet grief-stricken approach of the album is not a hard pill to swallow if you're used to acts like Forteresse, Monarque or Austere, but I'm nonetheless enamored by the poetic grace of the lyrics which befit the music, even if my French is a bit shaky:

Nous venons d'avant
Les mondes effondrées
À jamais vivants
Des rythmes d'avenir.
Le fruit de toutes les ténèbres,
Dans nos yeux, a inventé
Un jardin de diamants.

" Ô Petite Humanité,
Qui crève dans l'aube des jours,
Tombées, comme une flamme silencieuse,
As-tu dévoré tes rêves ? "

So, to return to my chastisement of bands who use music as a journey with their bombastic, hour-long single-track albums I stated in the opening paragraph, Gris is indeed one of the few who can achieve structural cohesion and captivation at the same time. The first part isn't hard to do. I'm sure anyone out there can stack four 15-minute monoliths into a CD with ambient effects of acoustic compositions jutting out in between, but, again, few can make the journey worth taking. The endless praise over Agalloch, the inexplicable adoration for funeral doom with its bantering pointlessness - it all seems so dull that Gris' achievement with this album would be some consolation for what the aforementioned failed to achieve... It's not perfect, sure, but I'd rather let my body be swept away by the doomed beauty of this record than any funeral doom band any day. Not just that, but the record's conceptual approach is a viable alternative to the rural appreciation of its countrymen. A Quebecois masterpiece for the decade to approve and bath in. Go ahead, cleanse your sins.


Highlights:
Les Forges
Igneus
Seizieme Priere
Une Epitaphe de Suie

Rating: 90%

Eternal Helcraxe-Against All Odds

Normally black metal wouldn't be such a treat for me, but there are so many albums and bands revealing themselves that it's almost impossible not get caught in one's web and whip up a review for it. 2012 has already offered a wide range of black metal albums to those who enjoy the chaotic genre, and even between some of these releases there's come differentiation and contrast, if not all of them. Irish black metal outfit Eternal Helcraxe are one of the bands who adopt folk elements into their music as well as pagan elements and the resultant is a more melodic, epic and moody black metal album that is simply orchestrated very well. With pianos and synthesizer constantly emerging and diving henceforth into the album during its more epic momenents, ''Against All Odds'' makes a peculiar listen, nonetheless still enjoyable.

Traditional black metal elements are obviously very dominant over the music here, but I can't help but notice that the music is more polished and excessible than some other releases, and in addition to that the album attains a crisp clean tone for the most part, rendering it sharp and fresh. Sure, there are very chaotic and intense moments where the two guitars merge and collide, but the vague yet surprisingly common appearence of pianos and synthsizers polish the album and turn it into a gleeming specimen, filled with melody and comprehensible diversity. The fact that the album teems with refreshing moments and productivity is a huge bonus, because many bands these days fail terribly on that subject. The main feeling present on this album is a mix between glory and misery. The epic moments rise when the chaotic guitar riffage appear and when the vocals shreik, when the drummer puts the pedal to the metal, but as the moment of courage and glory slowly fades, the riffs monotonously escalate and gradually take softer forms, such as beautiful acoustic medleys and sorrow-laden passages. Don't get your hopes down just because the album has plenty of melodic moments, though. Tracks like ''Shadow Of The Wolf'' and ''As The Snow Gathers'' have plenty of speed and aggression to them, attaining full speed tremolo bursts and drum battering with ease.

The one flaw that really ticked me off was the clean singing. They aren't used frequently, and I'm truely glad about that, because they were terrible, despite their vague obscurity. The album has its moments where the artificial (or should I say synthesizers) instruments take over what is left of a song and finish it off with a beautiful classical music sequence. Eternal Helcraxe have set their bar high with this release, and I'm pleased with what I heard. The musicianship is there, the atmopshere innevitable, the folk/pagan elements bring diversity to the music, the extra instrumentation gives melody and feeling, and thus if it weren't for these additional elements flourishing the album, ''Against All Odds'' would not have been what it is now.

Highlights:
One Stands Still Here
Echoes Through Our Blood
AS The Snow Gathers

Rating: 83,5%