Review Summary: A Soundtrack for Suicide
The cover to this album sums up the nature of the music very well; an eerie looking abandoned house sitting silently amidst a series of leafless trees against a dreary gray background. Simple, yet does plenty to convey a sense of solitude and loneliness. The same can be said about the music presented on Forgotten Tomb’s second release “Springtime Depression”. Released back when FT wasn’t a group at all, but a solo project, in which main man Herr Morbid was responsible for everything. Back when FT was a straight depressive black metal band instead of the more gothic style doom metal project it is today.
After a so-so EP, the project brought out its debut album “Songs to Leave” back in 2002, an album that justifiably could be called one of the best in the genre. It’s tortured; doom influenced brand of black metal did plenty to craft a state of absolute misery over its five tracks. With its cold synth work, devastated screaming vocals and bleak and empty atmosphere, it was quite a depressing powerhouse of an album. Skip ahead a year later, FT releases its sophomore LP, “Springtime Depression”. Here Herr Morbid takes the music in a slightly different direction, making many small improvements that end up having a big impact on the sound.
The production is much better than before, every instrument is much clearer and everything sounds exactly as it should. Guitars play a series of thick, incredibly grim sounding riffs with haunting clean acoustics that melodiously play out over them blended together to create a dark wall of sound, versus the fuzzy, thin mixing on “Songs to Leave”. They definitely have a distinct doom metal vibe to them. The drums are punchier and heavier this time around and the vocals have shifted from tortured high pitched screams to traditional BM rasps. The overall sound is uncomplicated but still memorable. Each track is catchy and sticks out, following a slow, melodic, brooding structure, as if it were a funeral march. The only track that breaks from this is “Daylight Obsession”. With its visceral drum work, it stands out as the fastest track on the album.
But where this album shines brightest is in its emotions. The chilling vocals, coupled with the loud riffs successfully weave together a piercing, atmosphere of depression, hopelessness and suicidal feelings. Herr Morbid has done an excellent job putting out these empty emotions in the music and convincing the listener of the depth of his own personal struggles with them. The grief and pain shine through the fairly simplistic nature of the actual music, giving them that much more weight and power. One track that a stick out in relation to this is the title track; an instrumental that contains nothing but clean guitars playing a very somber melody that paints pictures as bleak as the album cover. It’s absolutely chilling.
This album manages to succeed where most DSBM does not; a depressing album with genuine sorrow and melancholy behind it that manages to pull the listeners into the same feelings it puts on display. While the music is fairly simple, it’s executed beautifully and very memorable. It may not please everybody, but for me, this album is the apex of what a DSBM album should be like.
