Mythsofmetal seldom lets me down, and at least he doesn't f
uck around with me for his own amusement, recommending albums he must know I would hate and not want to listen to. He already helped me out bigtime with some excellent examples of Atmospheric Black Metal, so here's the first of his list of albums he thinks I should check out.
Curse of the cwelled --- Forefather --- 2015 (Seven Kingdoms)
Last year I reviewed
Steadfast and I'm told I didn't have a very high opinion of it, so mythsofmetal wants me to try again with the latest from British folk metal band Forefather. So here we go. Meh, I'm not impressed with the first track, which kind of passed me by. The vocals are certainly hard to make out, or at least the lyrics are. I can hear the guiy singing but not what he is singing. There's a nice kind of celtic feel to some of the melody, but I feel it lacks something. There's more energy in “The anvil”, and it bounces along nicely, while “By my lord I will lie” marches along with purpose, and “Fire of baited blood” (huh?) has a great sharp guitar driving it. I just feel there's nothing terribly much to excite me here. It's not to say the album is bad, cos it's not, but I just don't get as fired up about it as I had hoped I might.
The title track is the first one where I actually start to nod my head and think, yeah, there might be something here. There's an ominous, dramatic sort of ringing guitar tone flowing through the melody and it's quite catchy. From what I see from re-reading my review of
Steadfast, this is the first time Atheistan gets on vocals, as we can hear the lyric much more clearly, whereas up to now we've had to deal with the appropriately guttural ones of Wulfstan. And here he comes again. “Awakened hate” strides along on a nice triumphant warrior-style line, and well we also hear Atheistan taking partial vocals here, which is good. “Painted with blood” is another one that rides along on a powerful guitar with a warrior chorus idea, but I'm still feeling the same as apparently I did last year: good album, but just that. Good. Not great, not special, doesn't blow my skirt up at all. Still four tracks to go, so maybe something will happen, but I'm not that hopeful.
There's more fine metal in “Rustics to remain”, but speaking of remaining, I doubt any of these tracks are going to remain in my memory once this album has ended. It's just not making an impression on me at all. The two guys certainly know how to play, but this seems like it's going to turn into a somewhat shorter version of the review from 2014, where I advise that there's nothing wrong with this album, but nothing really makes it stand out that much either. I find it hard to muster any enthusiasm, and this probably demonstrates why, when a band has not really impressed me with one album, it's probably not likely they will do so with another. I more or less had my say on Forefather last year. Mythsofmetal asked me to try again. I have, and my opinion remains pretty much the same. Nothing I hate about the album, but nothing I love really either. A solid metal album, but only that.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. Havoc on Holy Island
2. The anvil
3. By my lord I will lie
4. Fire of baited blood
5. Curse of the cwelled
6. Awakened hatred
7. Painted with blood
8. Rustics to remain
9. Edge of oblivion
10. Master of fate
11. The river-maid's farewell