Forestheart

"Forestheart" is the first of 2 albums releases around the same time in 2005. The other album, Wind of Moors, is an entirely ambient album, while this one features some really raw black metal. There's still a good amount of ambient tracks, the Opening and the Closing are 2 admirable ambient tracks. While "Closing" sounds more like a drone doom song, "Opening" is just an atmospheric track which really sets the tone for the album. It was mixed perfectly, to give a big depressed and desperate feeling.

The other tracks on Forestheart are some great black metal. In fact, these have to be among the best riffs i've had the pleasure of hearing so far in 2005. Vocals are really good, if not generic, but they give a very hateful touch to the songs. "Flame of Wisdom", a slower song which focuses more on slow riffs which give a feeling of loss and sadness, has to be the most oustanding track on this release. Yes, I know I said the other songs really had great riffs, but the mid-paced madness on this one really gets to me (or at least more than the other songs). The latter part of the song (after the guitar-only part at 4 minutes) didn't contain some riffs as good as the ones in the beginning of the song, but the message it's trying to give still gets to me clearly. There were some great experiments done in the closing track, appropriately called "Closing". It starts off as what seems to be an ambient track with some underwater blurbs and various effects, but it later becomes an experimental track which sounds like Drone doom, which comes very unexpected in an album like this. These last 8 minutes really put the icing on top, if you see what I mean.

I was blown away by this album, and so should you. It has some of the best riffs so far in 2005, and any BM fan should enjoy this.