Misanthropic Reign Forest

After releasing 11 demos, most of them virtually full-length albums in their own right, and a compilation over 18 months – the act came alive in early 2023 – raw solo BM project Gravenfold finally saw fit to release its debut album "Misanthropic Reign Forest" in mid-2024. All the effort involved in making this album – the writing, the performances, recording, mixing and artwork – comes from Gravenfold sole proprietor The Misanthropic Tyrant of the Mountain Swamp aka The Operator. All that I have been able to find out about this reclusive fellow, apart from his being resident in Toowoomba in southern Queensland, is that he also oversees the label Screech Merchant Records which so far has released recordings from Gravenfold and another solo project of his, the death metal / grindcore Infernal Key.

Lasting nearly one hour, "Misanthropic Reign Forest" is a mix of dark ambient and noise experimentation and a conventional melodic raw BM core. After a sinister ambient multi-voiced introduction reminiscent of another Australian BM act (Kryatjurr of Desert Ahd), the album launches straight into a pitiless noise guitar grind on "Storming the Celestial Breach" at top blast-beat speed, powered by nuclear-fuelled percussion and with The Operator himself in full ghostly rasping screech glory soaring high over the music. Though the music is raw and lo-fi in production, the riffing is clear and melodic in the classic 1990s-era second wave BM style. There's just enough echo on The Operator's screaming voice to give the song a cold forbidding feel and a dark atmosphere. The one thing that is different about this track is the little experimental instrumental detail that may appear at the end of the track.

Most of the early songs (tracks 2 to 4) follow "Storming the Celestial Breach" in sticking to song-based melodic structures based on repeating guitar riffs and dominated by The Operator's vocals. The drumming rarely strays from its time-keeping functions and the occasional cymbal flourishes, and likewise the guitars, even during passages of instrumental music, concentrate on playing perhaps another set of riffs rather than fly off in frenzies of lead guitar soloing fantasy. "Final Journey to the Mountain's Hold" brings in extra complexity to the basic formula in the form a second counterpoint guitar and an unexpected passage of ambient experimentation.

After the recording's halfway mark, the music slows down somewhat, allowing for more catchy riffs, a powerful drumbeat and a definite headbanging groove to develop in tracks like "The Shadowy Figure Looming 'Top the Castle Walls". Things become downright doomy and even a little post-BM on the leisurely-paced "Returning to the Embrace of the Misanthropic Reign Forest", the steamy-guitar instrumental parts of which remind me a little of early Striborg before that act went coldwave / ambient. Perhaps the best BM-oriented song of the set of four here (tracks 6 to 9) is "Nocturnal Summonings of the Eternal Form of Lupine" which features a driving rhythm and the riffs to match, squealing lead guitar licks and (at last!) a respectable scrabbly lead guitar solo section, all culminating in a very brief explosion of guitar feedback improvisation.

What really distinguishes the album for me though is the spooky ambient instrumentals in tracks 5 and 10 which add extra menace and sonic depth to what would otherwise be more or less a straightforward melodic raw / old school BM album. Track 10, "Twisted Dreams of Shadow", is especially offbeat in its juxtaposition of a sinister rattling or crackling industrial rhythm against a set of disoriented deep drone noises, joined later in the track by a layer of harsh noise texture and, most malevolent of all, more droning sounds right at the bottom extreme of what human ears are able to hear. Though there is some experimentation with sounds, effects and atmosphere in much of the album, such adventurism tends to be brief and limited in range, and unless listeners are paying full attention, these moments of sonic exploration can be easily missed. All the pent-up tension of previous tracks finds its release in that final devastating instrumental that is "Twisted Dreams of Shadow" where the full occult otherness and desolation of the album's sound universe are revealed in their utter darkness.

Future recordings from Gravenfold would be worth looking out for, if only to see whether The Operator continues with a core melodic old-school BM style with occasional forays into dark ambient, noise and whatever other genre takes his fancy, or opts for further sonic adventures that may take him far beyond black metal. Whatever he does away from prying human eyes is bound to be intriguing – and, paradoxically of course, bring him more unwanted attention. I guess some people just can't win!