Lista de Bandas Ambiant Black From The Sunset, Forest And Grief ...Empty, Cold & Forgotten...

I am not your biggest Black Metal fan out there. I know my classics from Sarcofago to Darkthrone, I own some of the genre’s earlier cult releases and even a few rare demos but when the genre started to pick up full speed I almost gave up on it. Too many bands that produced too little quality stuff was enough to discourage me from persevering in that area.

Nonetheless, I have seen Black Metal rising so fast and so high that it could no longer be ignored. I saw the genre multiplying exponentially in terms of bands and dividing into many subgenres that would give birth to behemoths in their own respective areas.

Being a fan of slow extreme funeral stuff, I even came across some interesting releases. Nortt being one of the most famous one. Still, I had my doubts about some of the ramifications mainly with Atmospheric Black Metal. In my book, Black Metal was this vicious beast waiting in hell to be unleashed upon mankind. Cold and yet fierce, heinous and brutal at the same time. And while some bands like Archgoat or Morbosidad have, it seems, reached that pinnacle, others went into the opposite direction.

Talking about Morbosidad, here is, also from Mexico, a band that is their exact antithesis. While the former blast their way through hell, From The Sunset, Forest and Grief reflects on mankind’s despair displaying some very funeral-like music. This one-man band created by the aptly named Dan Funeral goes through the chores and grief of living and tries to transcribe it into music.

The music is indeed slow and cold as winter and fans of the heavier stuff might get somehow a little bit lost on the first listen. Needless to say that you won't be playing this CD in your next drinking party with fellow metalheads or else you’re planning on collective suicide. That stuff is intended to be played alone, possibly in a dark room and cut away from the influence of the outside world.

That’s exactly what I did and the result is rather convincing. Besides the slow progression of the songs, each one of them creates some unique atmosphere laden with sorrow and grief. I had the feeling of somehow living some kind of story where the protagonist finds himself on the edge of falling by a stormy rainy autumn night. His despair and agony build up to finally give birth to some kind of hope, as if the veil of sorrow had been finally lifted. The story does not say whether he finds peace by killing himself or he wants to cling to life though I'm inclined to believe that, for Dan Funeral, death is somehow a sweet reward after what he went through.

Musically, each song builds up on momentum using very few riffs as if to accentuate that feeling of helplessness. Traditional instruments are mixed with keyboards to induce even more atmosphere. Keyboards sometimes are a complete turnoff but they suit well that kind of music adding some grandeur to it. They fell as if they were taken from The Cure's trilogy. Moody and eerie at the same time just like you'd find on Faith or Pornography.

I would only complain about the vocals being mixed way too low in my opinion even though I have the feeling that this was made on purpose as if Dan Funeral was singing from his own grave dead and buried.

I won’t say that this CD is a masterpiece because even though the genre requires such criteria, I would have liked to see even more progression within the songs and somehow a little more variety. Still for a first release ever, this is definitely commendable and if you’re into that kind of atmospheres this is a very sound purchase to be made from Naturmacht productions.