Liste der Bands Dark Ambient Forgotten Land (USA) Imbolc - Winter

Winter ; potentially one of the most beautiful season of them all next to Autumn. The snowflakes fall, the icy tree slowly caress the sky with their skeletal branches, and a black metal / ambient band makes a conceptual album about winter. This last one is a must because, without ambient black metal bands, producing their glorious music in a winter realm unknown this world would not function properly. Forgotten Land is such band, except instead of just focusing on the season of winter, Lord Raven looks at all the seasons, which is a feat I have not seen ever before. The is the second installment in his journey through all the seasons, with this one being about Winter of course.

Pro's :
Firstly (and this goes for all of Forgotten Land's seasonal albums), his use of the four Irish festivals of the year in his titles is simply sweet.
For example : Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and eventually Lughnasadh.
Another pro of this album is how flowing, melodic and relaxing it is. There seem to be obvious influences from Liquid Mind and maybe even Vinterriket.

The only exception to this is the last track, "Hiver éternel". It's a very unsettling song as it features the screaming of a seemingly desperate man. He screams in French, which is reminiscent of Quebec, and the wide winter landscape prevalent there. The lyrics translate into "Why am I here ? I hate this place. I want to fly to the house. I will die here. I am cold."
As you can see, the emotional level of this song is very high. It sounds like it was recording in a an old house, with one wall blown out to a winterscape unlike any other. Occasionally, you hear the drip of a drop of water - falling from the ceiling to the floor. Its actually kind of frightening. Eventually the screaming and sobbing of the man blend into a baby crying. It makes for a "holy-shit-what-the-hell-just-happened" song, and the effect is very profound !

One other great thing is the packaging. I personally just love the slim DVD case and the stiff cardboard insert, containing lyrics and two beautiful pictures ; One on each side. But also, I love the fact that the CD itself is black, and I'm not talking about the CD art, but the down face of the CD is literally black. I dunno if that is symbolic of the dead blackness of winter, or just a simple mistake, but either way its a GREAT contribution !

Con's :
My really only problem with this album was how overly-consistent it was. The tracks sounded a little too similar. Its really not that big of an issue, but I just noticed that a lot of the tracks sounded similar.

Overall though, this CD kicked major ass. It shows all the signs of a great musician and ambient sound-scape shaper.
Even the packaging was awesome !

Pick up a copy at Dungeons Deep Records (you don't regret it) :
http://www.dungeonsdeep.com

There’s something about Forgotten Land that has always puzzled me. And that is that he’s known only amongst the metal community, primarily that of the fans of depressive black metal (like me). The thing is…he’s nowhere near metal at all. He only has ONE song that even has guitars. The rest of his material is all pure ambient keyboards and nature sounds; pretty much new age/spa music. And I do listen to that kind of music, but I would never expect to see an artist of that genre on Spirit of Metal, which is where I discovered him. But that aside, I still put Forgotten Land under depressive black metal (don’t ask me why ‘cause I don’t fucking know), and he produces the most beautiful music that has ever reached my ears. This is part three of a four part series where Forgotten Land would touch base with all four seasons. Unfortunately this is the last that we’ve heard from him. I don’t know where the hell he is now.

He started his own record label after receiving a good deal of success after releasing his first demo, Ancient Runic Sorcery. It has released a couple of albums from some other bands that I’ve never heard of (primarily ambient and depressive black metal artists), but otherwise there isn’t much else to it. Forgotten Land made one printing of 50 shirts, which all sold out within a week. Other than that, all that there is to buy from his record label are his CDs that come in a thin DVD case. I have already bought all of them and they’re beyond amazing.

The first song is what inspired the name of my depressive black metal solo project, Gethen. This song is very slow and very simple with few notes that eventually build into huge complex chords. This is a song that really touches me because of the entire atmospheric beauty it encircles me with whenever I listen to it. I don’t get all jittery and excited like I do when I listen to other stuff I like (i.e. Opeth, Augury, etc.); instead, I am put into a state of complete Zen and relaxation. For those of you that like to meditate at all, this is the PERFECT record for you.

Beneath the Glacier is an example of a Forgotten Land song with tons of nature sounds; starting with the intro filled with the sounds of water dripping off cave walls. This song takes you under the ice and puts you through absolute peace and serenity; leaving you very happy. The album continues to put you through a state of meditation and peace, and then comes the song I always look forward to whenever I listen to this record.

Snegurochka for some reason is my favorite song off this album. The reason why it doesn’t seem like it should is because it’s literally the same two notes throughout the entire song. But before you turn down this track, turn it on and close your eyes and imagine yourself walking through a forest covered with untouched snow, and let the music make everything around you more beautiful than it already is. This is the prettiest song off the album and if you want me to name a specific song that you should look up first, Snegurochka would be that song.

This is a MASTERPIECE regardless of what genre you want to place it in. Most of you may not know this but even though metal is my favorite kind of music, I listen to literally everything out there; and Forgotten Land has become one of my favorite non-metal bands. I would give this beautiful record a perfect score and would put it on full volume to show the world. I highly recommend that you pick up a physical copy of this because I don’t know how much longer it (and the rest of Forgotten Land’s albums) will be available.

****For those of you that find the album cover dull/boring/not cool enough, click the link below for my version of the album cover which contains a winter scene and the amazing official Forgotten Land logo that isn't included in the official album cover:

http://kangasphotoshop.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/1/8/6918701/320810_orig.jpg

And just in case you wanted better versions of Forgotten Land's "Autumn" and "Spring" album covers, you're in luck:

Autumn:
http://kangasphotoshop.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/1/8/6918701/3082140_orig.jpg

Spring:
http://kangasphotoshop.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/1/8/6918701/5296096_orig.jpg