Winterfrost

I am no enemy of keyboards in black metal in general. It is always a question, how often it is used. Forsth are walking on a fine line.

The beginning of "Snowly Mountains" is an example for a succeeded application. The keyboards are supported by the snare playing a roll and together they open the song with an interesting melody, gloomy and militaristic at once. The guitar sets in and after one minute the tune explodes. The breaks do not weaken the track, because they are aligned with its flow. "Snowly Mountains" has tragic and rabid parts and I would be glad, if the whole album could reach these heights. The almost omnipresent keyboards are also characteristic during the title track. Throatier vocals and up-tempo mixed with majestic parts make "Winterfrost" to one of the best cuts on this record. Nonetheless, the guitars should have claimed more space. But no doubt, these two songs are actually strong.

The converse example is called "In the Gleam of the Burning Timberabstract" (wow!). An atmospheric break, wind, rain, thunder, a keyboard-melody starts... and kills the song immediately. All power is lost and can not be rebuild in the afterwards process, although they try it and offer a raw speed eruption before the keyboards return with dominance. Too much variety, too long (seven and a half minutes), not bad, but inconsistent.

So what about the other tracks? The intro is (of course) keyboard-dominated with wind and water samples. With its atmosphere it represents in a certain way the common black metal intro of the nineties. After the very brute transition (cliché!) we hear "Waldpfad", not too harsh, but not drowning in keyboard sounds. Unfortunately, the production lacks of a well-produced snare. I do not hear a single beat as soon as they start a rapid tempo. Maybe they forgot the snare in the forest while they were walking on the "Waldpfad"?

Generally speaking, you can file the other tracks in the same league as "Waldpfad". The last three songs do not offer a single new detail. The mix of slow and fast parts stays the same, the keyboard break is compulsory. Seems like they had no idea how to break out of their song scheme. Ironically the varied pattern of each and every track leads in the end to very similar songs. With one exception: the folkloric "Mit den Gedanken im Nordischen Altertum" presents a simple melody and female high-pitched vocals. But what was the intention? A short archaic piece would have been maybe okay, but 3,5 minutes endanger the dark mood of the album. Regretfully, this track is placed exactly in the middle of this disc.

Do Forsth interfere musically - the lyrics are black metal standard - the feeling of coldness and / or darkness like black metal should do in general and in light of the song titles especially? They do not fail, but the warm (I use the tendentially unpopular word now for the last time, I promise) keyboards are a handicap for sure.