Tears of Mortal Solitude

As soon as I saw this CD in my pile, I knew this would get a good rating, why? Because I had checked out Forest Stream on mp3.com way before this release, where they had four tracks off of this album. Even then this stuff was great, a blend of symphonic and epic black metal. Songs average 10 minutes long, and they progress like no other, do not expect to get bored easily. From section to section you'll be hooked. My favorite track off of this release is "Mel Kor", the song starts off with an awesome heavy riff, vamping ont hat for a bit, then turns into a combo of Emperor and In The Woods. The song is extremely progressive and epic, the passages change from solo piano, to synth strings and guitar parts, the ideas flow on this track. This Russian black metal outfit has written 9 songs that are enshrouded in a dark atmosphere of winter. And although freezing sucks, mind that you would be sitting in your chair or something. Fans of Sculptured that also like black metal would like this, think of this as more a black metal fusion album.
Standout Tracks: Mel Kor, Black Swans, Steps of Mankind, Last Season Purity

Dance of December souls was one of the first underground metal cd's I ever purchased. This cd alone was enough to delve me into the depths of metal, showing me a world of beauty sadness and melancholy that I had never previously felt. To this day I still worship that album and regard it as an absolute classic. So When I got forest stream the other day, and immediately began to nostalgically relive the same emotions I received from Dance of December souls, I was not wrought with sorrow, but full of joy. Joy that after all these years of Metal a band can still intoxicate me, the same way it did more than 5 years ago.
But enough about Katatonia, the band we are dealing with here is Forest Stream, and while definite analogies to old Katatonia can be made, Forest Stream are in their entirely own ball park. Forest stream play a blackish style of doom metal, with extremely long songs, lots of acoustics, and TONS of droney and extremely bleak atmosphere. The overall sound of the album is very dark and sorrowful, but the production is absolutely top notch, making the music come off organic yet very easy to listen to. The bands consist of only three members, however one can tell by the depth of the songs that there are all sorts of unique guitar riffs, and keyboards overlapping (yet not at all in an artificial way). The best comparison I can make to this band would be early opeth meets early katatonia, meets melodic black metal (etc dissection). This analogy is just to give a very broad idea of the music but also to convey the level of quality this band attains.
There are 9 songs on this album and the cd is almost 70 minutes. The songs are therefore very long, yet for some reason flow absolutely perfect. The guitars and keyboards works as one on this album often intermingling (ala opeth) and often trading off with one another, one doing the leading the other holding atmosphere. The drums (programming, don’t worry) while mellow and somber are done perfectly and get intense right when necessary. The vocal are grim and explosive (they almost remind me of a more grim male Tristainia Vocalist), There are small amounts of clean vocals also, further adding to the atmosphere. And that my friend is the whole underlying them (crux) of this album ATMOSPHERE. so if you want an absolutely stunning, beautiful, tranquil, masterpiece, pick this album up. It is so brilliant and also so depressing. I know this band will eventually reach peak, metal status. Shit this is only thier debut. you can get this at the end records.
Disclaimer: after listing to this cd a few times, I must mention that this REALLY FUCKING DEPRESSING. So please if you already feel like killing yourself you may not want this cd, because it just may pull the rope.