After 14 years, Forestfather's first production is done!

The band have been for years a 1 man band, just until this year when I've found Mike (Rumpusaurus) and Jared (SLK) to help and now, as a full band, we're proud to present 'Hereafter'. I also need to say that Trygve (Forestcorpse) provided the pics for the artwork - which will be done pretty soon - , so we can safely say this is a full 'Metal-Archives' effort.

The recordings were done by everyone at their respective places and mixed/mastered here in Chile by Carlos (Silence of The Old Man, In Luna) at his CNA studio.

Here you can hear the entire album:

http://soundcloud.com/forestfather/sets/hereafter

The album will be released by Contaminated Tones, although we don't have a specific date yet.

Please, if you have any kind of thoughts and comments, feel free to share them.

Thanx in advance for listening!

Cheers!

This is great so far.. the vocals are a little odd - but they're good.

Regarding the vocals, that was the intention! Thanks for the feedback.

Btw, we're also looking for a label to release this and people to review it!

bump

Coverart added!

Really like the cover art. It flows well with the music and the logo looks right at home tucked in the trees. I have to give my support to this project - they really deserve some recognition after years of hard work.

Thanx a lot man! very appreciated!

The logo it's the work of Christophe Szpajdel; he did it 2 years ago, so all the kudos go for him. I just gave him the general idea of what Forestfather could have sounded at the time and he came out with this incredible job!

We're looking for reviewers too!

Bump it!

Btw, we already have a label to release the album! We're looking forward to work with Jon (Orionmetalhead) on this!

had one of your songs stuck in my head the other day haha

Hahaha! Nice!! Hopefully the album will be out physically soon

I also had struck in my head the whole album, especially after listening it over and over to check the production advances and makes some corrections

looking forward to this release as well with working with Jon.

I'm looking forward to this release as well. Forestfather is top notch and the amount of hard work they've obviously put into their material deserves a proper release. I'm expecting great things.

We might have a shirt design done soon, for the ones interested

I imagine this is going to be received very positively. The lead guitar tone is really memorable and I think the outro of the last song with the finger picking is something I have complimented in the past. Overall I enjoyed the vocals too, it is nice to hear something a bit different with respect to the cleans. Too many people try to emulate someone else and end up generic but this is much more memorable.

Whoa, thanx a lot! it feels really good, I really appreciate your words!

Well, when I write a song I don't focus in a style, I just think about a certain feeling and play/write something that resembles that. I was thinking that some people might feel that the MCD is a little disjointed or something for that reason, since the songs are different from each other and Mike used a lot of different approaches when it comes to the vocals, but it feels good to know that is being enjoyed so far ^^

The work on the new songs has begun!

Also, I decided to try the promote tool for Fb thru Reverbnation to see what happens.

The album art is superb, hope it's available soon through Bandcamp.

That's a matter of discuss , but at least the physical cd will!

Thanx a lot!!

Some things are happening in the Ff camp. I'll elaborate later

How cryptic!

what did that cost?

From what he told me.. he used the promotional offer they sent to him. So it was free for like a week and he told me it wasn't worth shit cause it didn't do any good.

It brought just 12 likes in 1 week, which is horrendous. I believe in the strenght of the material, so it's not like no one liked the album in any form. Probably the direct promoting via Fb works somehow, but I can't recommend such a dirty way of business.

Already working on new songs!!

Send em on over!

I need some time to finish the guitar parts

Yeah, I don't believe I would ever use the promotional tool. Seems underhanded to me. I average about 3 or 4 new "likes" per week through my own hard work... I'll keep it that way.

I already consider Fb in decline and I'm sure in 3 years aprox it'll die.

Update: the booklet is mostly done.

Interested on reviews! (some interviews too of people is interested)

Less than 2 months for the release!!!

An intro for a new song:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151225519508440

Listened to the album again today and finished up my review of it. I listened to it a few times over the two months or so since you posted it and I really enjoyed it. I didn't realize it was being released by CTP until today - I contribute reviews to the CTP site/blog, so I must note that I listened and liked it before knowing that. It's good to see two knowledgeable guys from the musicians forum putting together something this great - I think I see a correlation there!

Review:

Forestfather play a captivating style of atmospheric black metal with a lot of well-constructed acoustic passages. The dynamics of the dirty atmospheric parts and the clean parts contrast well, as do the growled/screamed vocals and the melodic clean vocals, which are sometimes harmonized nicely. Although I'm not usually a fan of this style, the atmospheric nature of the music seems to be a natural component of the music rather than the primary goal, as the music is also conventionally driven by riffing and melodies. Each performance is excellent and can stand out in its own right while fitting in with the music, especially the fretless bass playing, something that is rarely heard in black metal and often isn't restrained to the benefit of the music, which it is here. The guitar and bass parts show a strong awareness of each other and fit together well, both performed by Kveldulf without a notable preference being shown on either - they're used properly as different instruments, not just as a matching component of another.

The compositions are characterized by mindful complements between instruments with attention to the feel and flow of the song. Dynamics are more complete than tail-end fills, with each instrument and the vocals making subtle and overt changes during each part - nothing overly technical, not at all jarring, just a continuous awareness of the music that makes it quite interesting. The bass playing is certainly a nice component that is easily noticed, as is the drumming, which varies from lighter, laid-back stuff to fast blasts - not genre-bound to tick away like a blast beat metronome. The organic feel of the music, part of the atmosphere, is greatly helped by both the real, non-triggered drum sounds and the acoustic guitars.

The vocals are a bit odd at times, sometimes taking leaps which take a second or third listen to figure out why they happened. It took a while to get used to them, but it turns out that's a good thing, because the vocalist is capable of both leading and backing - another dimension of the dynamic nature of the composition. Vocals in black metal can easily either be a rhythmic leader, a monotonous background piece, or more traditional lead vocals when they're sung - here, they fill all of those roles at various points. Neither limited nor overdone, they're a nice piece that seemed odd at first but grew on me over a few listens. They're much like the larger picture in how they are composed and performed, fitting in nicely.

Forestfather is quite interesting considering the history behind the band - it was the one-man band of Kveldulf for 14 years before he completed the lineup internationally with Mike on vocals and Jared on drums. These years certainly saw a lot of contemplation and experience, because this whole project came together very nicely in a relatively short period of time. The exceptional coordination of each performance is quite astounding considering the musicians' geographic separation. This is a really good album, a great performance polished by the sands of time.

very good review!!

Sounds like Zod likes the release for the same reasons I do.

Thanks, I can't wait to get the final product. Since it's apparently a CTP tape, hopefully it'll be ready by March!

Pro CD Zod.

I was wondering... i thought it was coming out on cd.. but was like?? when I saw he said tape. I figured I'd wait and ask when I saw someone who could give me some answers.

We're around a month to go!

(damn man, I've been almost completely absent from internet - excepting this page, which is the only one I can see from work), but I hope I'll be sending stuff to you to study in some weeks

@Zod: Excellent review mate! I talked about it with Jon; it's pretty spot on, you really 'got' the album. One of those songs is from 1998, just imagine how many others I've written in these years!

I'm also amazed how fast and well everything turned out with Mike and Jared. When I sent the demo tracks to Jared, he sent the first song only after a few days! He already added a lot to what I put on the demos and the whole drums were completed pretty fast. I recorded all basses in 1 and half days, the guitars took like 2-3 weekends. Mike sent some demos to see if we liked his approach to the songs and, well, at least I was blown away with the performance; at the end, most of us recorded everything in 1 take (at least I know Jared and I did it in that way for every song) and the result was pretty tight and flowing, especially given the circumstances.

My main gripe with the MCD is the production, but I'm already making plans to record the stuff in a pro studio, also I'm making some cash projections to get new guitars, basses and other needed stuff.