Style: Black metal, ambient, neo classical
Primary Emotions/Themes: Darkness, mystery, ritualistic repetition
Thoughts: This is a tough album to write about. I have conflicting thoughts about different parts, some are fantastic, while others are not nearly as compelling.
When listening to Forn the prevailing feeling is that this is a mysterious album. The instrumentation and melodies are often unclear as they are shrouded in ambience or other obscuring effects.
So much of Forn is not even metal, the first five to six minutes of the album are choir lead dark ambient - lending a highly meditative and religious tone to the albums introduction. When the metal finally does come in, all the mystery and subtlety is driven aside - washed away in a furious morass of black metal.
That's the basic ingredients to Forn: religious and meditative dark ambient tracks and seething black metal that weaves in and out of it all cloaked in the deep shroud of mystery. It's a simple enough formula that does a decent enough job to keep my attention, but at least for part of the album I feel like something is lacking.
When the music is on point this is excellent stuff. Those moments are scattered in and out of the album, and make for some truly memorable moments. Be it the initial riffs of Draugr and the way they grab on to me and never let go. Or be it the incredible string driven instrumental Fornsǫngvar, Fyrnask has an incredible knack for making stand out moments shine incredibly bright.
The problem for me here is the rest of the album. Outside of a dozen or so stand out riffs or ear catching moments in the album I really don't remember much of the rest of it. It may as well be a blank tape. I remember listening to this album several times, but I'll be damned if I can remember any specific part about most of it.
This project has had my curiosity for quite some time, and while this album doesn't quite fulfil the potential shown, there is enough here for me to continue to explore. Maybe on on of the other albums from Fyrnask the glimpses of greatness can shine through for most of the album.
Written October 6th 2023
No comments:
Post a Comment