Many Black Metal bands have drawn inspiration from Tolkien’s world such as Isengard, Gorgoroth, Cirth Ungol and the band I’ll be discussing today Old Forest. Old Forest is an English black metal band that formed in 1998 and since then have released 5 full-length albums; the album I’m looking at today titled Back into the old forest is a re-recording of their debut album into the old forest.
The album starts out strong with the song Grond (Hammer of the Underworld). It’s a song that incorporates elements of black metal and classic metal, fusing harsher guitars with cleaner ones. The atmosphere that this song set is perfect and one that carries on throughout the rest of the album. The whole album carries this haunting and eerie sound that helps string all the songs together making for a nice cohesive listen, even though the songs differ it’s never a jarring transition from one song to the next. Like when the album slows things down with the song Glistening it feels like a welcome break in the album; that has the keyboard take the lead with a slower song that oozes atmosphere.
The main strength of this album is how they have incorporated different elements into their songs to make a unique sound; each song has a nice structure that incorporates different tones and tempo. Their sound makes great use of slower, beefier guitar riffs and doesn’t solely rely on quick tremolo picking so I didn’t find myself getting worn out listening to a few songs in a row. The use of the keyboard is perhaps what impressed me the most; making use of an organ sound in most songs which sets a nice creepy mood.
The song Death in the Cemetary became my favourite on the album from the first listen because the gothic sound they meshed in with black metal was great to listen too.
Each of the members put in a very good performance with this record. Guitarist Beleth really did a great job playing a variety of riffs and fitting into the overall atmosphere adding interesting dimensions to songs like Hymn of the Deep. Drums in Black Metal can sometimes seem like an afterthought and can be very one-note; however, I must commend the drums for not just being frantic.
They are not the star and don’t do anything out of the ordinary but it’s much more varied than some black metal. Lastly, vocalist and keyboardist Kobold tie all the elements nicely together.
His vocals sound like what you would expect from a black metal album, his screechy growl is nice and powerful; on Where Trees are Withered, he gives a great vocal performance and even makes the words discernible. The keyboard really blew me away in this album, without it this would not have had as interesting a sound but the way he used it to add a different element to each song was executed great. All this is helped by the production on the album, which is very nice, everything in the mix comes through clearly with nothing being drowned out.
This album really surprised me as I did not know what to expect from this band, but I am quite impressed and have now added a few songs onto my black metal playlist. I don’t know if I can say it’s a perfect black metal album but for me personally it’s very close. I would very much recommend this album to black metal fans that are into the more symphonic and atmospheric types of black metal but even if you do not give it a listen.
Release Year: 2020
Label: Death To Music Productions
Category: Album
Country: UK
Reviewed by Billy Poulopoulos
