lista zespołów Melodic Black Forest Of Fog Rabenflug

I stumbled upon Forest Of Fog while I was looking at Eluveitie's page. Forest of Fog caught my eye, and like I always do, I click on the link. Well well, what do we have here. 1 demo and 3 full lengths. Well I had to look up this one. What I found astounded me. It was good, and I don't mean good as in "Wow, I like this". I mean it as in "HOLY HELL". Anyhow, I was listening to the first track which is an intro. It had soft piano and birds chirping in the background. A ambient intro with great flow to it. Well the next track was beyond what I expected. "Schwertes Blut" is where you will hear the more common usage of guitar in this demo. You can tell the drums are programmed, but it's nothing a average drummer couldn't play. Anyways, the guitars are distorted like crazy and the drums are great as well. One of my favorite songs on the demo. Well, I was craving for more of this album, so I flipped to the next track, and it was just what I expected. First, you hear a little guitar solo and then, all hell breaks lose. Some blasbeats and some grim guitars are in this song. Then, a little unexpected, the "chorus" of this instrumental song kicks in and it is a beauty. It goes through just about the same thing for the rest of this song. Which really isn't a bad thing for this song. Well, I'm going to skip to track 5 and 6 because those seem to hit the spot the most. "Nebelleben" and "Rabenflug" are masterpieces, and my favorite tracks on the demo. I think he should've redone these 2 tracks just because they are the best. Rabenflug, the title track is up close in there with Nebelleben. "Nebelleben" has the best chorus on the whole demo. It starts off with a mid-tempo guitar solo and then breaks off into what I think is a really good verse. It kind of repeats itself sometimes, but in the end it's not to much of a problem. Along with many other things, this track has the best, and I mean the best riffs in the whole world, and it never gets annoying or old. Then we have "Rabenflug", just about the same as "Nebelleben" except it starts out more jumpy and straight forward. It builds you up and then lets loose.

This demo contains some of the best instrumental work known. I find it hard to believe that a solo project could've done so well on a demo! The only thing I'm really surprised about is that the quality of this demo could have been a lot better. I mean this guy works with Eluveitie, one of the most talented folk groups of all time in my opinion. Besides the quality, nothing is wrong with this demo at all. It has great guitar work and awesome drum beats. I kind of wonder if their was a bassist, because you could barely hear it. The guitars kind of took over the whole demo. The drums were drowned out mostly, but you could still hear them. If the guitars weren't as good then this demo would die out fast. It's kind of a balance thing for this demo. The one track that didn't fit in, and did fit in at the same time, was "Walking The Endless Path", it was jumping all over the place. It would have fit better with his later albums. I would recommend this demo to anyone, I don't care what kind of metal you like, It fulfills many genre's at once, but still keeps to the black metal. Basically, this is the best demo I've ever heard...ever.

I have very strong opinions about this album. When I was really getting into Black Metal back in the autumn of 2010 Forest Of Fog and Coldworld were the bands that instantly sparked my interest into the genre. This is actually one of the first Black Metal releases I ever listened to the whole of and as such is one of my most treasured albums. I remember going through a lot of crap and this album helped me to cope. It really has such a powerful effect on me I can't begin to describe it. I just love this little release so much.

Forest Of Fog play a very melodic and accessible style of Black Metal. Although labelled as Pagan Black on Spirit of Metal there isn't much to draw comparisons with the likes of Kampfar, Kroda and Arckanum. This album has its own sound, one of cold melody and melancholy with a distinctive aura to it that makes you feel as if you were listening to this album in a forest in the middle of winter. This isn't the type of cold as in it lacks emotions, I mean cold as in given the impression of winter.

Although this album is entirely instrumental, the vocals are not missed. In fact I'm actually rather glad they're gone because it allows me to focus on what is probably the single best instrumental Black Metal performance I have ever listened to. The melody is absolutely dazzling, Ivo Henzi (also in Eluveitie a world renowned Folk Metal band) has good riff composition skills and a very good sense of melody. What I like most about this release is that it doesn't sacrifice atmosphere for melody. Some bands have lots of melody but without a defined sense of atmosphere, in Black Metal the atmosphere is absolutely necessary I know it's probably cliché to say by now but atmosphere has always been a major part of the Black Metal scene. What I like about this release is that it finds the perfect equilibrium between melody and atmosphere. Some bands have tonnes of atmosphere but not a lot of melody e.g. Darkspace, other bands have lots of melody but not so much atmosphere which makes it feel somewhat synthetic, new In Flames is a good example of this. Forest Of Fog creates the most melodically atmospheric record I have ever heard and anyone with even a slight interest in Black Metal should definitely pick this up.

The guitars are played very well, they are distorted and to an extent “harsh” but compared to some Black Metal bands this is easy listening. There is no desire to be hard to listen to on here, this could best be summed up as Black Metal for everyone. Even light listeners of metal will probably lap this up as much as I did and for a pure Black Metal release that is an astonishing feat. The clean interludes featured in the album work very well and add to the atmosphere of the album. The usage of acoustic guitars is perfect and the piano segments never fail to wow me. Just listen to the piano bit that kicks in about 2 minutes into the fourth track Walking The Endless Path, now try and say with a straight face that that isn't some of the catchiest Black Metal you've ever heard. The drums are programmed but it really is hard to tell, they're not meant to sound like something a human couldn't play, they also have a really good sound to them so you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell it's a drum machine on the first try. Bass also has quite a noticeable presence on the album, it doesn't over power the other instruments but you can hear it perfectly. I personally love the usage of bass on this album, most Black Metal is devoid of an audible bassist so it's good to hear a Black Metal record where you can hear the bass perfectly.

Although I normally don't do track by track reviews I believe the track Rabenflug is definitely worthy of a paragraph. Although I was aware of Black Metal before listening to Forest Of Fog it didn't have the same effect on me as it does now. Part of the reason Black Metal is such a major part of my life now is partly, well mostly due to this track. I fell in love with it as soon as I first heard it and I've never turned my back on Black Metal since, in fact I've been listening to Black Metal daily for the past two years. It opens up with a bouncy and upbeat riff that is melodic and catchy as hell. Rabenflug easily gets the award for one of the best intros I've ever heard. The song appears to be broken down into a few sections, that intro riff which appears twice, then there's the harsher, rawer Black Metal riff that also makes 2 appearances and the piano ending. Every aspect of this song is wondrous and it completely amazes me that Forest Of Fog isn't a popular band, I mean how can you be making music of this quality and be completely over looked? What's even more embarrassing is that musicians of such little worth and non existent musical skill (I'm not mentioning who) receive masses of popularity. I find this shameful that such honest and beautiful music is over looked for generic, mass produced, commercialised faecal matter (yes I utterly loathe the mainstream.)

Overall this release is astonishing and considering the fact that it's only a demo is also amazing as well, the quality of music is incredible and I would easily rate it alongside classics such as Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, Enthrone Darkness Triumphant and the like. I really don't remember how I managed to stumble across this band, I have a vague recollection of listening to Winterreise by Coldworld on Youtube and it was probably in the related videos, I'm really not sure. I'm thankful I found it anyway because it is a wonderful release and I urge people reading this to pick it up and listen to what receives so much praise from me. Absolutely incredible.
Overall rating- 20/20 mentally I wouldn't be able to rate it anyway lower.
Favourite tracks- Rabenflug (one of my all time favourite songs actually) and Walking The Endless Path (the section that kicks in at the 2 minute mark is so catchy!)