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Forlorn > The Crystal Palace > Reviews
Forlorn - The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace - 95%

Lars_Stian, July 1st, 2018

I must say that I’m quite surprised as to how overlooked this album seems to be. It’s nigh impeccable atmosphere and melodies are quite unrivaled, in my opinion. Many bands have tried to make albums with a medieval or Viking mood and atmosphere, and many have succeeded, however none quite like this album; this album has its own unique interpretation of medieval black metal, and executes this interpretation quite flawlessly.

The album relies heavily on atmosphere; it sounds medieval, orchestral, and epic, and sounds fairly nostalgic as well. It's one of those albums really made for cold winter days. The synth is what truly makes the atmosphere and sound. The riffs themselves are good, however it's the synth that really shines on this album, creating somber and simplistic melodies, and makes the whole album sound huge, in a sense. As for the riffs, they pretty much consist on power chords played fairly slow. The whole album just feels so medieval; whenever I listen to ‘The Crystal Palace’, I get the starkest urge to play ‘TES: Oblivion’, and can’t help but imagining castles and medieval cities and so forth.

As for the lyrics, I don’t really think they’re all that great. They aren’t terrible either, however, but they’re just so meh. Most of the songs are about medieval battles and whatnot, and Vikings or whatever, but there’s nothing about them that really makes them stand out. It’s pretty much just ‘battlefields, swords, slaughter, knights, castles’; it doesn’t seem as if a lot of effort is put into them. Rather it seems, to me at least, that once the instrumentals were written, they just wrote the lyrics in about ten minutes, just to be done with it. Most of the lyrics are in Norwegian, and the Norwegian lyrics is by far the worst. They’re even less inspired than the English lyrics.

As for the vocals, I quite like them. The harsh vocals remind me of the vocals on Gehenna’s ‘First Spell’; they’re low-pitched, raspy, yet still have that aggression that’s needed. There are also quite a few instances wherein clean vocals are utilised, and though the vocals by themselves are just fair, their melodies are great, and add to the music, rather than just singing whatever the synth or guitars are already playing.

I actually really like the production, and it really fits with the overall sound of the album. It feels very soft and pleasant, which, although rarely positive in black metal, works really well on this. It's by no means over polished or bears a feeling of 'commercialisation' or anything. For this album to have a "Nattens Madrigal" sort of 'trueness' simply wouldn't sound right, so I'm very glad they opted for this type of production. Furthermore, one thing I quite like, is how all the instruments seem to blend together into one single entity. Just like with Emperor’s ‘In the Nightside Eclipse’, which instrument is playing what is quite indistinguishable, which always serves atmospheric and synth driven black metal very well. The drums are also quite good. They are skillfully played, yet they aren’t in-your-face; the drummer knows his place, and always uses the drums to enhance the mood of each riff, many times and oft playing slow, yet plays aggressively whenever required.

If I had to compare this album to others, I would describe it as a mix of ‘In the Nightside Eclipse’ and ‘Arntor’. It really is a perfect mix of synthetic black metal and medieval black metal. It consists of beautiful melodies, that I never seem to grow tired of, and brilliant atmospheres that really pull you into the album. I would recommend to any fan of either synthetic or medieval/viking black metal.

Amazing piece of epic metal - 85%

dismember_marcin, July 17th, 2017

When discussing some of the best mid to late 90's black metal releases and bands from Norway, Forlorn hardly ever pops up. I don't even know why, because I think they did release some great music and especially their first album "The Crystal Palace" is very, very worthy and recommendable. Damn, if you're a fan of early Ulver or Gehenna, as well as first Arcturus and Borknagar records (and let's not forget the viking era Bathory, please!!!!), this album has to speak to you! It doesn't matter if it's a bit forgotten nowadays and it's not one of those "true and cult" bands. If you like great sounding Norwegian music, especially in its more epic and melodic forms, then please give "The Crystal Palace" a listen.

It's been a while, since I have also listened to this album myself. And I have to say that nowadays this CD sounds for me even better than I remembered! I am astonished with its atmosphere and how much it is filled with enchanting, almost beautiful melodies. It's great epic black metal, done in not ordinary and orthodox way. Instead of being ugly and primitive, raw and hateful, this is just very well written and performed music. In its more aggressive and harsh moments, especially when they use shrieking vocals the music does remind me early Gehenna the most (not only due to the fact that Dolgar was also a member of Forlorn, although he joined the band few years after "The Crystal Palace" was recorded). Take such "Lik av falne menn" as an example - very close to Gehenna I think. But Forlorn uses a lot of acoustic guitars, keyboards, everything is very harmonious and atmospheric, mostly played in slow, kind of doomy tempo, with lots of beautifully sang clean vocals and choirs... Yeah, you can imagine. "The Crystal Palace" picks up the most melodic and atmospheric elements of Norwegian black metal and concentrates on them in 90% part of their music. So it's not an album, which will speak to those, who only like when their black metal sounds raw and violent.

One of the strengths of "The Crystal Palace" is that from the beginning to its very end there aren't any bad sounding fragments. Every song sounds fantastic and its atmosphere is simply mesmerizing. The first two songs "Lik av falne menn" and "Ærefull ferd" are enough to "buy" me. There's something almost magical about this album that doesn't allow me to stop listening to it. So bloody good and catchy, so insanely memorable... These are truly fantastic 40 minutes and definitely it's also the best thing, which Forlorn has ever recorded, it's almost sad that none of their next releases is even half as good as "The Crystal Palace". The second album "Opus III - Ad Caelestis Res" is barely a shadow of "The Crystal Palace" greatness. The black metal tag may not fully fit them, but I hate also using that worthless "viking metal" name to describe such music. So, let's just say that it's atmospheric, epic Scandinavian metal. One of the best in this genre, in my opinion, and so fuckin criminally underrated and forgotten!!!!

Standout tracks: "Lik av falne menn", "Ærefull ferd", "Bærer av Nordstjernen", "Gate of Mystic"
Final rate: 85/100

Impressive Melody - 80%

zervyx, April 12th, 2006

Usually Forlorn is classified as a melodic black metal band, but this album reflects way more than just that. “The Crystal Palace” involves elements from folk and even gothic metal, such as acoustic guitars, atmospheric keyboards, and croon vocals that could remind you of a Gregorian choir. As a matter of fact, this album is not anyway close to standard black metal, there’s no blast beat, is very melodic, the few growls are typical in death metal, etc. In most of the songs you can actually hear an acoustic guitar, 2 electric metal guitars, and the keyboards playing all together in a quite good melody.

“Aerefull Ferd” is one of the best songs in the album and also doesn’t have any death/black growls, just Gregorian kinda singing. Very acoustic and atmospheric but remaining in melodic metal, and don’t get me wrong, by atmospheric I don’t mean slow, this is definitely not doom.

In the other hand, “Baerer av Nordstjernen” does show death/black vocals and plenty of double bass drumming, nothing impressive but then, when the Gregorian vocals join the atmospheric keyboards there’s a good melodic atmospheric chanting.

“The Magellanic Clouds” is the typical awesome song that doesn’t have any lyrics or vocals. It doesn’t sound that different from the other ones, good electric guitar playing some figures over atmospheric keyboards and acoustic guitar, double bass drumming.

The song “Ragnarok” starts with growls and a distorted guitar riff, more like a guitar orientated song but there’s also a melodic part with plenty of atmospheric keyboards and clean singing, sounds quite impressive.

I would recommend this album to people that enjoy gothic metal and melodic death metal, the album doesn’t seem to be a good quality recording but the melody is great and the keyboards are awesome.

Nothing Memorable - 44%

GuyOne, February 28th, 2006

One thing I hate doing is comparing bands to each other but in the case of Forlorn, I don't have much choice. From the moment I began playing the last track till the moment the album ended I heard continuous references to Borknagar. The music is not nearly as intense and the vocals are not as raw. (Though there is growling vocals throughout the album).

There are hints of black metal in the music but no fullblown blast-beats or any other black metal elements. Acoustics are very present in each song and it sounds good mixed in with the other instruments.

If you want an excellent example of the acoustics, pick a song. Almost every one of them shine. Most notibly is the beautiful, but short, intros to 'Aerefull Ferd' and 'Gate of Mystic'.

'Ragnarok' is more guitar driven. The riffs and keyboards are more present. This track could probably be the "catchest" song on the album.

The chanting and clean vocals are a hit and miss. Sometimes the vocals are pulled off perfectly and with passion but in a few songs (example: 'Gate of Mystic') it sounds like the vocalist doesn't want to be there.

Halfway through the title track is a horrible industrial like keyboard tone that sounds like complete shit. It doesn't fit into the song or the album at all and completely destroys the atmosphere created around it.

The memorability of this album doesn't stretch far because there is no real stand out moments. Just solid viking metal with a touch of black. Each song is beautiful but easily forgotten. There are no real melodies that will get stuck in your head for days to come.

Well any song with the acoustics stands out (Which is almost every song). The two instrumental tracks 'The Magellanic Clouds' and 'Lunar Eclipse' are excellent and so are the first two songs 'Lik av Falne Menn' and 'Aerefull Ferd'. It is just too bad that the rest of the album had to drag these stand out tracks down.