Change & Renewal

On 4chan, there's a greentext about a guy who moves into a new apartment and hears the tenant next door playing some black metal. He thinks it sounds pretty good, so he goes out into the hallway to get a better listen. But then he finds out it's not black metal, it's just the whirr of the air-conditioning unit. The story is probably fake, but I got a laugh out of it.

I always regarded the above story as a hyperbolic satire of raw black metal, but by golly, I've finally found a black metal release that could hypothetically be confused with an air-conditioner unit. The recording quality here is so poor that the music takes on a new atmosphere, like how a happy song might instead sound wistful if you hear it being played in another room, perhaps at a party that you weren't invited to. While this release certainly has all the elements that sound grating to the ears of those not accustomed to black metal, it sounds strangely relaxing, less like Mayhem and more like the sound of blowing snow on a cold winter night.

As for the music itself, it's fairly solid. The riffs are catchy, the songwriting is standard, and the vocals are perfect for this style of raw black metal. The lyrics are quite poignant and poetic, with clear influence from - I'm kidding of course, the lyrics are indiscernible. The guy could be reading the ingredients on the back of a cereal box for all we know. Musically speaking, Forest Grave doesn't push the envelope beyond the black metal standard set by Mayhem and Darkthrone. For those who like raw black metal, they'll likely get a kick out of this short release.