Opus III - Ad Caelestis Res

The second album from Forlorn could be a masterpiece. Take the best parts of their first album (acoustics and Viking melodies/vocals) and mix them with the studio experience that helps mould a band.

Well.....

As soon as the album starts three thing become clear. The band is moving more away from the viking sound they had on their previous release and more towards the black metal. The other thing is the absolutely poor quality of the sound..... And there are no acoustics. At all. More on that in a bit, but first we'll discuss the improvements.

The growl vocals are more frequent and sound much better this time around. There are points when the growling vocals sound so strained it hurts to think of the vocalist doing that to himself. It isn't a huge bother but it leaves me feeling as though the vocalist has smoked too many cigarettes or has severely damaged his throat between albums.

The keyboards take a step forward (Like they have in black metal recently across the board). It sounds great when used within contrast, which it is here. There are some parts (such as the song 'Midnight's Overture') where you could almost call this a symphonic black metal album.

'Shadow Cult' has a beautiful keyboard break at 1:35. It sounds great and when the keys really get going it turns to be a highlight of the album. Each instrument meshes together excellently at that point. The added clean vocal chanting is excellent. Then breaking into the first blast beat section of the album. It's short but furious!

The songs are faster paced and the double base kick is spot on. There are not many blast beats so each song isn't plagued by the blasting non-sense that song albums have seen. They are put to good use and seem to appear just when needed.

A huge plus that I liked about their first full-length album was the abundant use of acoustics. The excellent use of keyboards replaces the acoustics. What makes the difference is that over the years keyboards have become much more common in metal than acoustics. Thus, the acoustics were a breath of fresh air, where as the keyboards almost sounds like the band wants to blend in with other black metal acts.

This time around the songs are much better structured. Faster and more memorable riffs, the vocals are much better (growl and clean) and the keys are much better. The drumming includes the much needed blast beats to give the album a black metal feel. The entire album is better as a whole. It's only too bad the acoustics had to be removed. It almost makes me cry when I think about how this album would have sounded with the acoustics mixed in.