Review Summary: The greatest music you have never heard.
Expect the unexpected. Always. No other medium will exemplify or justify exactly why more than music. Just when you think you may have heard it all, a band will come along and send your ideas and understanding about a certain area of music completely awry.
From Cairns in Queensland, Australia, the Forest are such a band. Though you wouldn’t pick it, especially meeting them for the first time- four softly spoken, polite and seemingly ordinary humans on their own. Once they are united under the name of The Forest, however, it’s a different story entirely. The sound produced is blistering, unrelenting and at times frightening- and that’s just the vocals. With their debut, self-released and eponymous EP, the Forest takes all but eighteen minutes of your life and engrosses you in every last second of it.
The Forest showcases a set of songs that are inimitable, almost visionary in nature; inspired, dense movements of music that can and will come down upon you like the proverbial tonne of bricks.
Beginning quietly and harmoniously on “The Ocean”, we are presented, fittingly enough, with the calm before the storm. Distorted and dissonant guitar invades and shatters the song’s quiet manner of a drawn-back drumbeat and sparse piano like a large rock into still waters. Momentarily afterwards, the vocals change tactic from delicate, soft singing to unrelenting, pained howls- and almost as soon as they arrive, the song grinds to a halt in order to make way for the chaotic “Abraham”, complete with borderline-schizophrenic time signature changes and scathing guitar wails.
Vocalist Javed Sterritt is the unquestionable driving force behind the Forest sound. Not only does his raw, unadulterated scream perfectly tie in with the panicking, apocalyptic lyrics, but his moments of clean singing (as found in “The Ocean” and “The Stallion, The Horse and the Great Divorce”) present the perfect contrast to the song’s energy, layering further energy to both the song’s preceding and following parts.
His counterparts at the time of the EP’s recording were bassist Benjamin Wedrat (who has since moved to guitar) and drummer Ray Bartan (who has since left the fold entirely). The rhythm section keep up the pace exceptionally throughout the EP, with Bartan’s challenging and convoluted drum patterns particularly standing out. Wedrat’s thick, flowing bass parts assist and emphasise the milieu of each of the songs, especially in the beginning of “The Fire” with a complex dash along the fretboard that clears the path for the ensuing musical disarray.
The issue with discussing
The Forest on an overall basis is that each of the six tracks presents the listener with a standout moment that truly emphasizes the great things that the band has to offer. Whether it be the catastrophic march of “The Fire”, the desperate 6/8 spiralling of “The Bear” or the astonishing transformations of “The Mistress”, not a second is wasted in the EP’s entirety, making it quite the experience to listen to in full- which, at just under twenty minutes, really is not much to ask.
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the EP is during “The Mistress”, where the instrumentation is muted save for a fast-paced drum beat, leaving a moaning, desperate Sterritt to expose his pains, as well as his faith:
When I was young, I fell from a tree
From a branch that faltered into a hole you dug for me.
“Father! Father!” I cried “I can't breathe”.
But I lived, oh God.
It reminded me of the time that your son fell for me.
The Forest are unashamed to profess their Christian faith in their lyrics. The use of the word “profess” must be noted here, in place of “preach” or “lecture”. They are simply reflections upon their own lives- and, in turn, how they choose to live them. The concept behind
The Forest stems from a disgust in what humanity has become (“We are monuments/Splendid monuments/But we could not be uglier”, “Why walk westward when the light is shining eastward?”), but also of self-actualisation and a determination to become a better person in the face of this adversity- “It’s time for a change/Singe my arteries to make no doubt/That a fire lives here”. “Teach me to create wonders,” Sterritt cries out as “The Mistress” draws to a close, “not tear things apart”.
Very few bands- nationality, longevity and faith regardless- have managed to create musical perfection with their debut release. And yet, the Forest have done so. This kind of focused, consistent and honestly beautiful music is a precious rarity- not only in Australian music, but in the world today.
www.myspace.com/theforestmusic
