The Third Winter

Forest Silence is a Hungarian black metal band mainly known for their only studio album "Philosophy of Winter". But before that, they originally played dark ambient music with a couple of touches of dungeon synth and blackened ambient. While "Winter Circle" does get its fair share of praise, their first demo "The Third Winter" is kind of overlooked in their overall discography, and since the review challenge just started, I figured I'd start it off by bringing some attention to this semi-obscure demo.

The demo has two tracks that total for about 32 minutes long. The first track "The Third Winter" mainly consists of calming synths that play in the background with what sounds like water drips playing in the foreground. These two layers of synths have a soft and gentle sound in them and give off an atmosphere of pureness and calmness. The atmosphere is definitely one of the strongest elements of this demo, and when we move on to a more blackened ambient moment around the 10 minute mark, it only further enhances the heavenly atmosphere with the grim vocals and soft drums that play. This first track on this demo is absolutely amazing, and is the stronger track of the two.

As for the second track "Paradoxon", it is just as good as the first one. This one's longer at 19 minutes, and it has a more dark atmosphere than the previous track. This one has some low-toned echoes along with some creepy industrial-like sounds and later on a folk drum that plays along with some blackened vocals. The overall atmosphere is more gloomy and ghastly than in the previous track, and it works just as well, especially with the dungeon synth-esque synths that play at the end. However, Winter's vocals sort of weakens the atmosphere since his flow can be a bit off at times. Otherwise, "Paradoxon" is yet another excellent track on this album that closes the demo on a high note.

While there isn't really much to say about these simple ambient track, the atmosphere they bring in is wonderful. Both of these tracks have some high quality synths that also have some fantastic blackened ambient parts sprinkled in them, and while I'm fine with both tracks, I'm personally more skewed towards the first one for its angelic and myst atmosphere. If you're looking for some great dark ambient for the night, then I highly recommend you check this demo out.