Metal music must be one of the most varied genres, you have bands that plays just one certain metal genre and then you have these hybrid’s and clones. This band comes from Italy and was formed in 1999, this band is a hybrid between doom-metal and black-metal and they sing about tragic stuff like depression, suicide and death. I discovered this band while I was looking for new music, I typed the word forgotten and then I found
Forgotten Tomb, I read the facts and I thought this could be a quite interesting band. I downloaded one song I listened to it and I thought it was sick, really sick, but after a couple of months I thought that I can’t judge an album or band by just listen to one song, I’m not quite happy in how I got this but I got the whole album and I was a bit surprised. This album felt quite melodic, atmospheric and quite overwhelming, there were these calmer and more melodic tunes from doom-metal and then you had these incredible and strong screaming from black-metal. This album cover is not the original but by just looking at the album cover and read the album title
Songs To Leave is enough to understand what this band sings about.
This album is called
Songs Of Leave and was released in 2002, this is their first full-length release. This album has a total length of 40 minutes and there are only five songs, an the album cover you see here is not the original one. All of them are in calm paces except for some faster sections in some of them, there are melodic elements here, the music does affect you somehow which is pretty cool. The thing that people might hate or love with this album is the insanely throat slitting vocals, these are vocals is not for the faint of heart, I do feel a bit uncomfortable when I listen to certain songs from time to time. But that’s just me; let’s have a look at the songs shall we?
I’ve been having trouble to find the correct line-up for this album but the current line-up is a five man crew. This band is though lead by
Herr Morbid (Ferdinando Merchisio) and he handles the vocals and guitars.
Razor SK is lead guitarist,
Algol is bassist,
Asher is the drummer and
Henrik Nordvargr Björkk is responsible for the sound effects.
Entombed By Winter (
10:56) – This is the opening song and it is also the second longest song which is about ten minutes. The song starts off with a gentle and sad acoustic intro, drums enters later in a very calm pace and there are these clinging sounds in the background which are following the same structure as the acoustics. The acoustics changes and becomes more spooky and eerie and highly distorted vocals appear, it really cuts in your ears. All instruments are gathered and create a very haunting and slow piece of music; the vocals are still highly distorted. When the song has come halfway it changes it song pattern to a sadder and lonely sounding pattern, the vocals stops to be distorted but they still cuts in you rears. Faster acoustics (intro) and background speaking makes a short break in this madness before a new song pattern emerges, the intro acoustics is the main segment in this pattern. You can feel that the pace has increased a bit in speed; it goes on like that for a while until the intro acoustics appears to end the song.
3/5
Solitude Ways (
7:41) – A short scream and the song is moving, there is this sort of solo-riff that really grabs your attention because it is slow, melodic and very creepy. A second guitar comes along and plays the same riff but in a higher tone, a new scream bursts it way out and the song gets sadder sound. This section ends and more creepy acoustics makes a short break, vocals now appear or screaming (which it is) but they are not distorted this time. These intro sections are being repeated three times before a whole new pattern emerges, the creepy acoustics is active while heavy chords are being played. A guitar solo is performed and it sounds quite melodic and catchy but it is not played in a fast pace, the overall feel has turned into a more haunting and depressive feel now. There are also background speaking in this song as well, there is a short break with speaking and then the song ends with these ‘’intro sections’’, perfect way to end this song.
5/5 (
Recommended Track)
Steal My Corpse (
9:28) – Bursts of screams and haunting guitars makes the intro for this song. New screams emerges and then the instruments plays in very fast paces, typical black-metal music but the song still remains quite calm though. The song gets now quite heavy and quite melodic and sad; the song patterns are very shifting here, very fast and then slower then faster then slower. The end starts to get close, calm acoustics appear alongside this great melodic solo which is also quite long, this was also a good ending but the overall song was not a highlight though.
3.5/5
No Way Out (
6:45) – This song also starts with a scream, a heavy calm intro section is being played. Then there is another great solo-riff that appears, this makes the song very catchy plus that there is double bass kicking in this song as well. A new song pattern takes shape and it feels a bit depressive and ‘’hopeless’’ but it is still at the same speed as previous patterns. This song has a very good flow and a good song pattern with interesting musician ship, definitely one of the better songs.
4.5/5 (
Recommended Track)
Disheartenment (
12:42) – The final song and this is also the longest track, it starts with a very sad but yet melodic intro. Agonizing screams appears a little now and then while the song are companied by double bass kicking drums. This sad intro stops after a few minutes to give room for a slower and more melancholic break, more agonizing screams are heard alongside the sad intro riffing. These sections are being played for a while, then a new pattern is introduced and this one feels more hopeless and desperate but it still sounds very good though. These melancholic tunes disappear and the intro sections are being played once again and these are the riffs that close this song.
5/5 (
Recommended Track)
Well what do I have to say about this album, well definitely not bad! I was very suspicious when I first heard my first track, I was also quite suspicious when I read about the whole band and saw the album cover. But this was not as bad as I thought it would be, some things that I really liked were the fact that the music had an impact on me. Most times I listen to music I think this was good and this was bad, but this felt strange, every thing that the band is involved in is against my own thoughts but it was still tempting in a way. Most songs were pretty okay to me, the musicianship was great and the song patterns had an excellent amount with riffing. I think that the only thing that was bad was the vocals, I think that they were to rough and too sharp, and when they were distorted they became even worse. But I think this was a pretty strange but yet very interesting album, I have no idea if there are other bands that sound similar to this band but if you like slower and more melodic music you should check this out. I think that this album was special so this will be given a:
4/5 (excellent)
