Forgotten Woods

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Forgotten Woods is a Norwegian black metal band.

history

Forgotten Woods was founded in 1991. According to the published 1993 Demos Forgotten Woods and Through the Woods and the Promo 94 the band debuted in 1994 with the album As The Wolves Gather , which on the German label No Colors Records appeared. Her second album The Curse of Mankind was released there in 1996 , but in the meantime the EP Sjel av natten and her Promo 95 have been released independently of No Colors. In the same year Rune Vedaa and Olav Berland founded the side project Joyless , which should be more experimental than Forgotten Woods and not be based exclusively on Black Metal; the first two joyless albums and their split EP with Apokryphus also appeared on No Colors.

The last Forgotten Woods release there was in 2003 the 3-CD compilation Baklengs mot stupet , which contained bonus tracks in addition to both albums and the EP; In 2007 the label refused to release the new album Race of Cain because the song Third Eye (New Creature) featured several calls for victory and healing . Vedaa wrote to Decibel Magazine that he had explained the lyrics to the label owner personally and in detail and that he had proposed several solutions, his lack of understanding of the artistic point of view and his childish behavior had left the band no choice but to leave the label; in addition, his decision is strange in view of the release of records by right-wing extremist groups such as Graveland and Nokturnal Mortum . The band is avowedly social Darwinist , but the text was clearly directed against herd thinking, conformity and brainwashing, the calls for victory and healing were chosen as the best-known example of idiocy and mass psychosis. The label owner Steffen Zopf does not give interviews and therefore did not comment on the incident to Decibel Magazine . The label had already censored an EP of Rune Vedaa's side project Raven (founded in 1993 as Ravn) in 1997; originally it was supposed to be called Fascist Machine , but the title was shortened to FM . Since the label had already released the sound carrier Facta Loquuntur by the openly neo-Nazi band Absurd , this decision was ironic. Forgotten Woods has also been supported by the French Neige ( Peste Noire , Alcest ) since 2007 .

In addition to Forgotten Woods and Joyless, the members are currently involved in the “UNpop” band Delicatessen, the industrial / experimental / ambient project Satanismo Calibro 9 and Rapefruit.

style

In 1994, Rune Vedaa described Forgotten Woods' music as cold, dark and atmospheric. He contradicted a description by Ronald Möbus as more traditional Metal in the spirit of Venom compared to Darkthrone and Gorgoroth . In the early years he used the term "Winter Metal", their music was, according to Vedaa, no Black Metal and absolutely no Viking Metal , and referred to the traditional definition of Black Metal through satanic texts. He is not interested in mythological beings such as Huldra and Troll , in Vikings and, according to Möbus, the “glorious past” of his country. For the lyrics to Dimension of the Blackest Dark and In My Darkest Vision , he gave his thoughts on forgotten forests. He explained the name of the band as a picture for a kind of dream world that was not of this earth, the place the band longed for. In their Myspace biography, however, the band categorized themselves as Black Metal.

Forgotten Woods is more deeply rooted than Joyless in Norwegian Black Metal and builds on primitive, punky production, which Nikola Shahpazov compared to Darkthrone's Under a Funeral Moon in his review for the Webzine Chronicles of Chaos ; Typical for the band is, according to Dominik T. von Nonpop, "superficially fucked up, punky Black Metal". Critics accuse the band of being too close to early Burzum ; Just like old Burzum releases, the band builds on "[l] slow to mid-tempo heavy, sometimes epic long songs, with harmonious-melancholic melodies and an atmosphere that can almost be seen as a reference for depressive Black Metal " . Likewise, the music was accused of setting itself apart with the "very interesting set up" booklet on Race of Cain and the "photographs clearly from the Black Metal landscape purism" contained therein, but of playing unimaginative music, which "just before mistakes, Inaccuracies, bad transitions and ends "teeming. However, fans point to the "own note [...] that the four musicians breathe into their art", to their "special form of ingenuity [...] that only unfolds when you have been immersed in their bristle music for a long time" . There is a rock 'n' roll / the velvet underground vibe to be found in the music, which becomes accessible to the listener “at some point, almost in the form of a key experience”. In contrast to many black metal bands with a raw sound, the music is seldom based exclusively on sheer speed, but often on breaks and grooves . Although the sound mostly remains primitive, there are also melodies in the music, for example in the melancholy Here in the Obsession or the quieter piece The Principle and the Whip with female vocals. The song Third Eye (New Creature), on the other hand, begins with a simple riff, stylistically somewhere between The Exploited and Motörhead , and Sieg-Heil-Rufen, goes into a sample of a conversation between TV preacher Bob Larson and Boyd Rice on Talkback With Bob Larson and ends metallic.

Lyrical themes include nature and the occult , but the Race of Cain album also addresses social issues; the booklet contains anti-Christian propaganda and is shaped by anti-conservative ideals. The title and contents of the album are reminiscent of Charles Baudelaire's poem Abel et Caïn (from Les Fleurs du Mal , one of the classics of literary Satanism ), one of his most important works.

Discography

  • Forgotten Woods (demo, 1993)
  • Through the Woods (demo, 1993)
  • Promo 94 (demo, 1994)
  • As the Wolves Gather (1994)
  • Sjel av natten (EP, 1995)
  • Promo 95 (demo, 1995)
  • The Curse of Mankind (1996)
  • Baklengs mot stupet (3-CD-Box, 2003)
  • Race of Cain (2007)
  • Forgotten Woods / Through the Woods (first demos re-released in 2007)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ J. Bennett: Forgotten Woods. Reunited Social Darwinists ask: What's a few sieg heils between friends? Decibel Magazine , July 2007, archived from the original on February 7, 2008 ; accessed on March 22, 2017 (English).
  2. ^ Crin: A History Of Norwegian Black Metal. Norwegian Black Metal, archived from the original on August 14, 2012 ; accessed on March 22, 2017 (English).
  3. ↑ a b Forgotten Woods. Myspace, archived from the original on November 15, 2011 ; accessed on March 22, 2017 (English).
  4. ↑ Wolf : Forgotten Woods . In: Infernus . Nordic Holocaust. No. 4 , 1996 ( scribd.com [accessed March 22, 2017]).
  5. ↑ a b Nikola Shahpazov: Forgotten Woods - Race of Cain. Chronicles of Chaos, November 21, 2007, accessed March 22, 2017 .
  6. ↑ a b c Dominik T .: JOYLESS: Wisdom & Arrogance. Misanthropic Pop. Nonpop, March 23, 2007, accessed March 22, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Iormungand Thrazar: Forgotten Woods> As the wolves gather. Guts Of Darkness, April 9, 2007, accessed March 22, 2017 (French).
  8. ↑ a b c SeeLeNMoRd: FORGOTTEN WOODS. As The Wolves Gather (CD 1994). Myrrthronth, April 30, 2002, accessed March 22, 2017 .
  9. ^ Shadowthrone: Forgotten Woods - Race of Cain (2007). Schwermetall.ch, accessed on March 22, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Sage: Forgotten Woods - Race of Cain. In: Heathen Harvest. August 1, 2008, archived from the original on January 25, 2013 ; accessed on January 13, 2018 .