Background Information
Herr. Morbid (Herr is a swedish for Mister/Mr), I don’t know how he came up with that name but who cares, he is the frontman to this quite interesting metal band.
Forgotten Tomb is the real band name and they have made a nice career for them selves,
Herr. Morbid was left alone for a while at the beginning, he released an EP called
Obscura Arcana Mortis back in 1999 and he was responsible for all instruments back then except that he programmed the drumming.
Forgotten Tomb is known for their very dark style of music, every song is basically about taking your life and lots of other depressive and negative themes. They play a mix between doom-metal and black-metal, one very slow genre mixed with one of metal’s most intensive genres, how would this music sound like? Well, I will tell you,
Forgotten Tomb’s music is slow, very dark (on the edge of extremely dark), and very melodic actually. But this music is not as slow as bands like
Thergothon or
Cianide.
Forgotten Tomb’s music is not highly complex or difficult to master, everything sounds very simple, there are no technical solos or guitar work, the only thing that might seem a bit technical or advanced might be the drum work in some songs.
Herr. Morbid concentrates on feelings rather than great musicianship, and I think he is doing a great job, some bands may deliver high-tech music but there is no ‘’magic’’ in their material. But this band does affect you, you really get the feelings of sadness and perhaps depression but the music can also seem beautiful as well (
then I just mean certain songs), this music does not fit everyone though, some people might actually take their lives while listening to this while others just enjoy the instrumental and vocal performances and they don’t care about the lyrics.
Album Information
Songs To Leave was released in 2001 and it displayed a very sad, depressive and ‘’hopeless’’ style of music. But the album which was released after
Songs To Leave showed another style/sound compared to the first release, the new album is called
Springtime Depression. It was released in 2003 and this time the album was even darker, more haunting and more depressive, there are though a few songs that has moments with intensive drum moments but that is all speed this album has to deliver.
Herr. Morbid used loud, throat-slitting screams in their first album, it also had lots of simple electric acoustics or ‘’solo-riffs’’ as I call them.
Springtime Depression appeared to by somewhat of an opposite to their first album, this time the vocals were more classic black-metal rasp, the guitars are more solid, massive and loud, even melodic acoustics rings out from the songs but the most important thing is: the album is so emotional. This is not difficult music but it is highly emotional, you can really shed a tear while listen to a song.
Colourless Despondency,
Subway Apathy,
Scars and
Todestrieb are songs that are very atmospheric, haunting and eerie and quite powerful, these songs have a quite mellow pace but they have a great melody and the song patterns are well thought ot and are easy to follow or ‘’get into’’.
Springtime Depression is an instrumental song and there are no other instruments in this song except for two guitars, and there are
only slow melodic and electro acoustics in this song. This song made me almost shed a tear, but I think this was a beautiful song even if it makes you sad, this song can make you bored though, the song has a very simple song pattern and the only thing that makes this song good is when one guitar plays a different pattern near the end.
Daylight Obsession is the fastest song on this album, it enters with very intenisve drumming and haunting guitar work, the intensity slowly decreases but it still has a faster tempo than the rest of the songs.
My Conclusion
One part of me says that I should stop listen to this band and/or music, another side of me says that this is very interesting and it sounds very good while the third me says that this kind of music is okay but there is a line that I won’t cross, so Me, Myself & I are colliding with each other regarding this album. To be honest with you I have to say that I like this band, but
only for their music performance and
not because of the lyrics, call me crazy but I enjoy this album very much but this is a band that I will keep to myself though. I found this band while randomly searching for music and I happened to like it, but this is a band that you have to discover on your own in my opinion, but I do recommend it to black-metal fans and perhaps people who like the slower or slowest types of metal genres. I recommend it most because of the fact that the black-metal elements ‘’shines’’ better on this album, if you just happen to like ‘’depressive-metal’’ this might be a band for you.
Pros
+ Incredibly emotional material
+ Very atmospheric, heavy and quite melodic songs
+ The mix between black and doom metal is perfect
+ All songs are actually catchy more or less
+ This is not advanced music but it is played with precision
Cons
- Experienced metal fans might see this band as a sick and twisted band
- Don’t listen to this music if your real life situation is bad or low
Recommended Songs
-- Colourless Despondency
-- Daylight Obsession
-- Springtime Depression
This album will be given a uncertain but yet solid 4/5
