Forestheart

Some of you already know that the Marblebog album to get is "Csendhajnal" which originally came out in 2004 and is due for a reissue in 2008 on the Autopsy Kitchen Records label. In the meantime the AKR label has reissued a later album "Forestheart". This can be a beautiful recording to listen to and there is sometimes a dark, enchanted kind of atmosphere as well but some of the music in the middle of the album is too close to "Filosofem"-period Burzum and even reminds me of the French-Canadian band Sombres Forets whose album "Quintessence" I've reviewed here on MA and which didn't impress me either for sticking close to the Odinpop template with some songs.

The best tracks on "Forestheart" are the ambient pieces that bookend and the second track "I Am The Forestheart". The opening track which is simply called "Opening" is a one-tone synth swirl reminiscent of early 1970's German space rock music (reference points are pre-Autobahn Kraftwerk when that band was at its most hippie-like and some of the more floaty stuff by groups like Can and Amon Duul II) and featuring were-animal grunts and groans. "Closing" starts off with bubbling swamp tones that then pick up some creepy early '70's eeyoi-ing synth shimmer before lurching into some seriously downtuned bass guitar doom soloing that'll have the like of Sunn0))) drooling all over the floor for the rest of the piece.

"I Am The Forestheart" is a strong track with driving riffs which establishes the template of straightforward melodic Odinpop-style BM for the rest of the album. The tremolo guitar melodies are fairly sharp and clean-ish with a bit of a rough edge and the acoustic folk melodies that appear add a distinct melancholy flavour. The drumming has an electrifying thrill all its own and the singing can be sharp and vicious. Highlight of the track though comes with the song's coda which is all-ambient with soughing wind effects and an almost shamanic drum rhythm dancing with a Jew's harp tune which together introduce a pagan element that emphasises the primeval nature of the forest spirit.

The other three tracks that follow present powerful strumming music with catchy riffing, a strong and deep rhythm section that sets the pulse racing and anguished howling grim vocals of a sort that would be welcome on an Akitsa album were they less tasteful and disciplined. The music isn't especially fast and actually slows down to a crawl of "Flame of Wisdom": this song incidentally could have benefitted from alternating fast and slow sections as there are passages where the guitars and rhythms fall away from each other. The music is repetitive and the three songs don't appear all that different from each other. Also the strange forest ambience established in the album's first two tracks disappears and has to be picked up in "Closing".

I'd have preferred less of the generic Burzum-wannabe music and more pagan folk and dark ambient influences sprinkled throughout the album. The sinister atmosphere fades out early on and only returns in the outro track and I think with an album that has this concept of a dark forest world inviting listeners to enter, that you really have to hang onto that alien feel throughout and not let it go in the middle of the recording. The Jew's harp tune is an unusual addition to the music and should have popped up in at least another couple of tracks to help maintain the primitive pre-Christian feel. I associate this instrument with nomadic cultures of Central Asia and Mongolia and since the Hungarians trace their ancestry back to the people who originally lived in these areas and had the same kind of cultures and shaman religion and most likely a similar kind of music, the further use of Jew's harp on "Forestheart" would have been something Hungarians would warm to. I can't understand why when Marblebog man Vorgrov hits a goldmine like that, that he would let such precious stuff run through his fingers. This could have been a really great album of melodic BM combined with Hungarian folk music.