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Forefather > Steadfast > Reviews
Forefather - Steadfast

Steadily Fast and Heavy - 95%

Petrus_Steele, February 8th, 2020
Written based on this version: 2008, CD, Seven Kingdoms

The brothers of Forefather like to use the term Anglo-Saxon metal in their music, despite being Viking-influenced black metal. But I’ll go on with this review on their terms, when clearly you can hear black metal in this record... The brothers went beyond the genre. To stand with that respect, they actually offer more melodies, clean-melodic vocals, as it’s all complemented by sheer blast beats and excellent guitar melodies. They seem underrated, as far as I’m aware, and Steadfast is almost averagely a perfect record. Not sure what caught everyone’s attention to check this record out more than the rest of the band’s discography, but I’m certain there was a good reason for that.

Having a clear vision of how they recorded this masterpiece, it gets you fully energized and something that even non-metal or the term which Metallum likes to use — “mallcore” listeners — can get behind. From start to finish, this record stays fresh without recycling or using the same riffs and compositions. You also have amazing vocal ranges and variations than just the standard shrieking in the genre. Since they’re British, they utilize their accent which ultimately helps in the vocal delivery and perfects the lyrical themes, as listeners would read through.

The majority of the album is explosive. It’s like the drums themselves are the music, rather than just being in the background, assisted with the bass, while with the guitars it’s a no-brainier. Fantastic, not very challenging and fulfilling melodies; gives me this feeling as if I’m listening to the extreme metal version of Iron Maiden. Brunanburh, Theodish Belief, and Fire from the Sky offer said examples, even though the third song might sound a bit simple in its approach. Mellowing of the Mains is experimental. Not a lot of vocals and more instrumentation-orientated, it features some catchy riffs, effects, and I think even a synthesizer in the verses. The title track is more or less a groovy but exciting song labeled in black metal. You can tell by the drums’ and the guitars’ performances. The bridge through the guitar solo contains short but bone-chilling clean vocals and great, low choirs. The ending gives a nice touch of a fading sweeping guitar.

There are two melodic songs in the album that stand out the most: Hallowed Halls is melodic on all standards. Not featuring any shrieking with concrete double bass work, this song continues the album in a different perspective and creativity. In terms of folk, Miri It Is fits the description. It’s got the melodies and the vocals and they work so damn well together, and much like Mellowing of the Mains, its focus is more on the instruments. More on the album’s approach is its darker tone. Three Great Ships is as heavy as it gets, with strict blasting drums and catchy melodies. What caught my attention the most is the combination of the low and high clean vocals in the choruses. As the guitars complement the vocals in the background, it gives them a darker texture. As for my favorite song on the album, Wolfhead’s Tree follows the same path, only the music feels more depressive, in terms of the guitars, while the vocals are more operatic and accelerated.

There are two exceptions for this masterpiece that didn’t hit the wall. Cween of the Mark, which despite the fact that the majority of the songs are around five minutes, this song is the shortest. While I enjoyed the rhythms in the pre-choruses, the guitars sounded less intriguing, as if it would be easy for one to simply pick a guitar and riff through. The melodies were also not that great, and no clean vocals were present which made the song even more simple and boring. The instrumental track Eostre was in the same structure, only it felt more like melodic hard rock or like Iron Maiden and not memorable, too.

With all that being said, I can’t recommend masterpiece enough! As I said above: even non-metal fans could enjoy at least some bits of this record, yet keeping it original, fresh, and intriguing. Since I’m not a fan of folk metal or any similar genres of the kind, especially the melodic death metal stuff on the other end of the spectrum, this might be my favorite record in the folk metal subgenre. As the rating suggests, I didn’t expect to like this 95%. With a few replays and paying attention to the vocals and the music, this is not a record to pass. The best songs are Theodish Belief, the title track, Three Great Ships, Mellowing of the Mains, and Wolfhead’s Tree.

A terrific creation - 95%

Dux_Saxoniae, February 6th, 2012

Forefather have been around for a while, but their early work was bedevilled by low production quality that sometimes overshadowed the brothers' talent. Steadfast is their first album to sound absolutely terrific, and the more polished production really lets the band shine.

The sound is simply so much fuller: there's the far more prominent drumming (by session musician Wolfhead), utilising blast beats to create powerful soundscapes based on black metal. There's Wulfstan's more aggressive harsh vocals that alternate perfectly with cleanly sung choruses, and Forefather's proved knack for writing great hooks shows no sign of letting up.

For my money, the album's single best track is 'Three Great Ships', an absolute earworm, but 'Brunanburh', featuring an excellent translation of the Old English poem as well as some spoken lines from the original at the end, comes close. Weaker tracks are hard to pick out, although the instrumental 'Eostre' and the somewhat pale 'Mellowing of the Maids' let down what is otherwise pretty much a perfect album.

As with much Viking metal, Forefather embrace an anti-Christian ideology that occasionally flirts with ethnic nationalism (I wonder how comfortable Welsh people would be with the lyrics to 'Three Great Ships'). Those who feel uncomfortable about this should remember that pagan metal is essentially about creating an imagined past - the society Forefather idolise never really existed (and certainly not 'for thousands of years'). It's absolutely a great album, though, one I've listened to over and over.

Impressive, but certainly not perfect - 91%

Ingeld1066, April 27th, 2011

Before getting into anything else about this album, I have to admit that I when I first heard it a couple years ago I was really impressed with Forefather's ability to write so many quality riffs in one album (and still am). That being said, I wish the quality stayed the same from song to song, but unfortunately this isn't so. Certain songs such as Cween of the Mark and the title track are full of memorable riffs and choruses (more so than nearly any other metal song that I have heard), yet others such as Theodish Belief and Mellowing of the Maids have 1 or 2 good riffs at most. It is mainly because of this disparity between tracks that this album loses points in my opinion. On here I hear 4-5 great songs, a few good ones, and then the rest are just ok. I don't see this as a huge problem, it just stops me from giving the band a perfect score.

Another small issue that I have with this album is the lack of an actual drummer and a full time bassist. I understand that at times one of the brothers will play bass, but not always. Also, of course it's fairly common to use drum machines in viking and black metal, but over 95% of the time you end up with simple and rather repetitive drumming, which can be irritating from time to time. There are a few points where the brothers are playing a long (sometimes boring) instrumental section when I hear guitar chords and simple drumming and it irritates me beyond belief.

At various points throughout 'Steadfast', Forefather demonstrate that they are a force to be reckoned with, displaying powerful yet melodic riffs, impressive clean and harsh vocals, and lyrics that fit perfectly into their genre and song structures. However, they sometimes lack consistency in these areas and when they do, they end up exposing some of their weaknesses, such as their usage of a drum machine and the frequent absence of bass lines in their songs. If the band was able to recruit a talented drummer and bassist, as well as space their riffs out equally between songs, this album would be perfect. But until that album is released, we are left with 'Steadfast', an impressive contribution to the viking metal scene that remains one of the better albums in my own collection.

Brilliant! - 100%

hailmarduk666, April 17th, 2009

This album is the complete package. Lyrically brilliant, and equally brilliant regarding musicianship, songwriting, and production. Everything here is put together perfectly, and it a wonderful example of how a metal band that focuses on history and victories of yore should do things.

The first thing that I want to comment on is the lyrical content of this album. Just stupendous. Every song tells a story, battles, warriors, women on victorious steeds, sieges on enemies, with Old English poetry, and an obvious wealth of knowledge concerning the brother's Anglo-Saxon heritage. I suppose one may think that there are enough epic battle songs, from groups such as Amon Amarth, Moonsorrow, Manegarm, and such, but this is a spin that those don't take. The epic battles of the old kingdoms of Britain, their foes, and the historical significance of how their culture is shaped today. A history lesson to song, and I LOVE history :D

The musical aspects of this album are beyond explaination. I am continually headbanging throughout the whole cd, and leave it in my player for weeks on end. There is an unending amount of fabulous melodies, each different, each excellent; fast, brutal, and induces involuntary headbanding. Every song has it's hook, killer riff, excellent vocals, and keeps me shaking my head wondering how it can be made into a better product in the era to follow this album. I honestly don't see how it's possible. This is a good, and bad thing, because when hopes are high, sometimes there is nowhere to go but down; leading to disappointment. Thankfully, I am "steadfast" (pardon the pun) in the belief that this band will continue their epic ways.

Production of this album is spot on. Nothing is too far in the forefront, nothing is too far in the background mix-wise, and there is nothing over the top. I like the fact that there aren't many, if any samples, and overdubs, because an album like this would sound the same live. No gimmicks, regurgitated songs and song topics...Just a refreshing, damn good metal album that hits every nail on the head, and leaves me 100% satisfied in their talent and their product. No adjective of complete fulfillment can be too overbearing, nor can it be too undeserving.

Can't really get much better :) - 95%

Koolacc, February 19th, 2009

Forefather have always been one of the very interesting bands playing pagan metal. A band consisting of two brothers Athelstan and Wulfstan started their metal career some ten years ago with their debut album Deep Into Time, which was quite well digested by the metal fans, possibly thanks to its Anglo-Saxon folklore influences combined with black metal. They kept on composing and releasing albums of quality black metal inspired by the British folklore.

I was really looking forward to the new piece of music from these guys, mainly because I consider some songs from Ours Is The Kingdom to be one of my personal favourites in this genre. When the new album finally got to me, everything I was hoping for came out true. Forefather made simply the best pagan metal album that got released last year.

It's still the same music Forefather were making before – blackish guitars, folkish melodies, chants and songs sung both with the clean vocals and the harsher ones, but at the same time the music is quite different as well. What is important is that the songs are overally fresher, more agile and more melodic, I'd even call them perfect at times. It would make no sense to talk about the individual songs, every one of them has its place on the album, every one of them stands out in a way, every one of them makes you listen to it again and again. I'd just like to mention an instrumental Eostre, melodic Hallowed Halls, kicking Fire In The Sky or a metal version of an English folk song Miri It Is. The average song length is about 5 minutes which is quite a lot, but it's damn hard to spot a dull moment here.

As I mentioned before, Steadfast is the absolute number one in its respective metal genre last year. Catchy riffs, melodies, overall mood of the album and originality when compared to German of Finnish folk/pagan/viking metal bands make this one a valuable and enjoyable album for everyone who likes this music.

Originally written for http://www.metalzone.info

Forefather's best - 100%

Viking_Horde, September 11th, 2008

Well I've been a fan of Forefather for a while now, so I was excited to hear their new album when I saw it was out. Honestly, I didn't think it was going to be this good. This definitely takes their music to a new level. Anyone who enjoyed listening to Mithotyn can appreciate this album. I loved Mithotyn and I wish they were still together. Well I got my wish essentially with this album, although I would argue that this is even better. The songs create such a uniquely epic feeling that it really distinguishes them from other folk metal acts. Basically you can't help but enjoy yourself while listening to this album.

First of all, the guitar work is amazing. There's so many complex folky riffs that you lose count. I was really impressed by the effort they put into making every song flawless. Some folk metal bands in corporate the folk atmosphere through keyboard or various folk instruments but Forefather does is strictly with guitar, and they do it so well. Every song is just brimming with enjoyable guitar-work. The drums sound great as well, perfectly suiting the production. Bass is up to par too, and really adds a lot of depth to songs like Wolfhead's tree. The vocals of Forefather are also superb. Aside from the guitar, this is what really distinguishes them. The clean vocals just fit perfectly with their style of music and I think are some of the best clean vocals out there. Mix that in with the growling and you got yourself some amazing vocal performances. One more thing I'd like to mention is the use of old English lyrics! It's cool to see some English folk music amongst all the Scandanavian stuff.

Overall this album is just awesome and is in strong standing for album of the year. I really think they reached their true potential with Steadfast. My favorite song is Miri It Is, with Wolfhead's Tree and Fire From the Sky right behind. Can't wait for the next one!

Forefather has done it again..in a new way - 98%

Incinerated_Glory, August 10th, 2008

Last year I wrote a review for this band's debut, "Deep into Time". In that review I said that "Deep into time is the band's best album to date but not by much" or something along those lines. I think I have made a huge mistake because this masterpiece was released soon after my review of the debut.

This album is no longer the Epic black metal band it used to be, with atmosphere and emotion fueling the senses. The band has become its own entity with this release, transcending as a melodic act that is beyond normal black metal.

Similar to Kalmah, the new album is a very melodious take on black metal and should be seen as visionary. While the latter uses progressive elements in Black metal Forefather uses the components of viking metal, galloping riffs and rhythms, and the power of black metal to capture the listener in a spell of harmonies and force.

The album itself:
When this album opens, there is no intro to slow it down. The aggression begins right from the start and doesn't let up. The songs are flowing and transitions are done well. Vocals on this release also sound more confident and pure. This is most evident on such tracks as "Steadfast", "Fire in the sky", and "Three great ships". The album will leave you asking for me and will be the next album that gets overplayed by the avid Wintersun fanboy.

Highlights: Steadfast, Fire in the sky, Cween of the mark and Hallowed Halls.

For fans of Wintersun, Kalmah, Ensiferum, Einherjer and any other Viking/Black metal band that utilizes melodic elements and aggression in a way that will fill the listeners heart with pride.

Awesome - 100%

Sargon_The_Terrible, July 3rd, 2008

Wow. I own all of Forefather's albums, but I cannot be said to have ever been a huge fan. I like them, and they are an original and cool band, but none of their previous works ever grabbed me as really first-rate. That is why Steadfast is such a kick in the ass, as it is Forefather's best album ever. Six albums in, the brothers from England have struck gold.

This is not a big departure stylistically from what they have done in the past, it is just heavier, catchier, and more aggressive than anything they have ever done. High speed Black/Folk riffing has always been what Forefather is about, but this time it is just better: the riffs are better, the playing is tighter, and the production is clear and heavy as a shield-wall. No intro track, no warm-up, they just blaze right away with opener "Brunanburh", and then things get really good with cuts like "Theodish Belief" (undoubtedly their best song to date), "Hallowed Halls", the smoking title track, "Fire From The Sky"...I could just list off every song as a highlight, as there are no really weak tracks here at all. This thing just volleys away like a mangonel barrage, scoring hit after hit. The only album I can really compare this to is Suidakra's Signs For The Fallen for sheer crunching folk-riff mastery.

So Forefather have entered the big time with this one, and they are setting the bar very high for other Folk Metal bands this year, as Steadfast is going to be the album to beat. This album is pure steel killing from beginning to end, don't miss it.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com

STEADFAST FOREVER! - 99%

silenceharmsyourears, April 1st, 2008

4 years have passed amongst the cold dark forests & fields of Angleland. The winds of eternal freedom have amassed a lot of hope & expectation for the next Forefather tale, bringing the voice of the ancient ones to life.
Finally it is here ... a breath of fresh incredible metal in the form of Steadfast! This album is amazing, awesome, gargantuan, supreme… get what I’m saying? Quite likely their best work to date, which must confirm that this is band above most. The complexity of this album, musicianship, production, EVERYTHING - has shot through the roof, and to no detriment at all. The band was already great, but this is another level. And now I will explain why...


Music/Musicianship :
From the get go the music immediately blasts you straight back into Anglo-Saxon times, with totally epic metal attack, putting you in the mood for a sword fight & mead down the tavern, celebrating glorious victory of war - like your kingdom depended on it. The complexity of the music has been upped, so you’re thinking great, there goes the catchy songs? Retarded for-the-sake-of-it guitar twiddling? Wrong. The songs are still unbelievably memorable & catchy, whilst being more technically proficient than ever, a well achieved feat. It will take a little longer perhaps to get into some of the songs fully, which I think is good in the long run – I’m already enjoying them equally and more so than previous work. There are immediate favourites for all to digest such as Brunanburh, Three Great Ships & Cween of the Mark, others take a little longer perhaps but still amazing. But something isn’t the same as before…

Sound/Production :
One of the first things you'll notice about this new album is the change in production. Starting with the drums - perhaps they stand out the most - but like everything else sound perfect, I can’t fault them. Better than on previous albums in terms of realism & tone, while at the same time sounding like the same drums! - Which makes part of the perfectly smooth evolution I’m talking about! The vocals are also much better, still retaining their blackened rasp but much more mature, aggressive, & the clean parts perfectly placed & toned - not to loud or quiet, again they stand out as original and distinguishable from any band I can think of.
The entire production is heavy! Heavy, organic, smooth, crisp, & just enough raw - this works superb with their perfect, flawless, inhumanly tight playing. Production-wise this sounds perfect, not that their other albums were bad, they have their own style but personally I think this suits them much better. It’s an original sound to me, and it’s perfect. Just the right amount everything, which allows the guitars to slice straight through the roaring bass line like a red-hot razor through butter. You know it’s a great sound when you don't want to fiddle with the EQ while listening! As a perfectionist I find that a lot, but not here. All the instruments are clear and distinguishable throughout.


Overall :
When the expectation is high, and the time is long… optimism, even pessimism may start to set in. As a fan I dared to think they may have changed in such a way as to fall out of sync with the previous works in one way or another (as many bands do when they evolve/change), putting all their old work to shame or vice versa. Neigh! The album is, much more mature, advanced, and somewhat darker in places then previously – as is perfectly epitomised in the artwork (which I must add suits it perfectly). They have evolved immensely and simultaneously graciously - almost unnoticeably! You can tell there has been so much effort put into this, care to every single detail - you’ll be listening to it for along time to come, finding more details & snippets of info & things you missed along the way, hidden deep within the depths of this magic work. They deserve all the praise possible. Another monolithic statement of the genius this duo holds.


Simply put :
Amazing! A great work of art and I am solidly predicting my favourite album yet. The wait was definitely worth it. Without fully realising it all yet, you know straight up its something original & awesome and you are caught between banging to the metal-ness and awestruck with the perfectionism and vast beauty! A smooth transition to a level beyond most bands ability, beyond professional. They have definitely come into their complete own here -"Leaders not followers"! A great start for any metal fan who doesn't know them and a fresh new awe inspiring listen for fans of old. I look forward to everything else they put out (hopefully soon!), there's no one else making music quite like this, of this quality & standard.


Every Englishman should own a copy of this & certainly every metalhead. Superb. Metal album of the year!


STEADFAST FOREVER! 9.9/10