Temple Forest

While Hate Forest is mainly known for their harsh black metal, the group has also dabbled into ambient territory before. The most notable is their demo "The Gates", which is divisive among fans and something I personally won't recommend to those trying to get into the band. However, in 2007, the group released another demo titled "Temple Forest", which were previously featured as bonus tracks from one of their compilation albums.

Composition wise, this demo is very basic. In pretty much all of these tracks, there is only one tune that plays throughout the entirety of the song. But despite its bare-bones songwriting, the synths and keyboards sound really good, as they capture that dark and cold essence of a wintry forest in Ukraine. There are also a couple of standouts as well. "Moon", for instance, takes on a more nightly atmosphere that is executed well with its spacey synths, while "First Rays of the Rising Sun" feels more like the sun is rising in a chilling landscape. But my personal favorite track would have to be "Spectral and Sad Is Thy Forest Dance". Not only is it the most complex track with two layers of keyboards, but its atmosphere is the most grand and spectacular with its melodic tunes and booming sound.

Temple Forest might not have the dark, desolate riffs like most other Hate Forest albums, but it does still have that cold, bleak, and depressing atmosphere that Hate Forest is so well known for. Like with The Gates, I personally only recommend it to those who are more knowledgeable with the band, but even if you're new to the band, there's still no harm to entering this dark ambient realm.

Temple Forest is a disposable extra among Hate Forest's catalog. It's 8 tracks of weak dungeon synth composed and performed by their at the time bass player Arthur Schkolnik back in 2000. If this wasn't held on until 2003 when it was released as part of the less circulated and less hyped To Twilight Thickets compilation, I would've called it another attempt to sucker black metal fans into half-assed ambient music. Even then, I'll easily name Temple Forest as a reason why 99% of black metal musicians shouldn't make ambient music.

If you don't have the patience for longer, more well constructed pieces by the likes of Mortiis, this style of music wasn't for you anyway. But don't get suckered in by Temple Forest shorter song lengths. They're all structured the same way: a four note MIDI piano melody played with a reverb laden backing synth note. "Spectral and Sad is Thy Forest Dance" has the most activity and it still manages to be a snooze of an affair. These melodies all have the same impression of "This sounds pretty cool..." until you just realize "Oh wait, this is all that's going on in the fucking track." Well crafted ambient and dungeon synth does more than that. Constructed well, it ends up being well flowing, dynamic, and immersive. Temple Forest is none of those things.

Black metal dorks, don't give stuff like Temple Forest the time of day. Not even for name recognition or completionism. Do what Fenriz recommended on the linear notes of the first Neptune Towers CD and listen to Klaus Schulze instead.