Песнью в жатве горя / As a Song in the Harvest of Grief

In my last review, I covered Forest's last album "Foredooming the Hope for Eternity", which officially marked Forest's signature sound of a more melodic and grand style of Russian black metal when compared to the darker and more melancholic sound of Branikald. Not only that, but this style will only be doubled down in their next album "As a Song in the Harvest of Grief" in 1999. And not only is this as good as the last album, but in some aspects, it does better.

The album begins with a nearly 7-minute long intro track that mainly consists of a raw guitar playing a dark and melancholic riff that repeats through much of the track. While there is a bit of Branikald influence on this track, it still has that grand atmosphere that Forest did in the last album. Eventually, we fade in the next track "В дыханья грудь", and this is where things get insane. The once droning riffs is now a fast and raw riff that plays a very depressing riff. The Branikald influences become much more apparent here, as it does borrow some of the sorrow feelings from that band, while also mixing it with the grand feelings of Forest. The drumming is also a lot more intense when compared to previous Forest albums, as the beatings are more powerful, and the blastbeats are sped up to create a more fierce tone in the atmosphere. Despite a more depressive tone, the instrumentals still remain true in providing a melodic and beautiful sound, which is only further enhanced throughout this album. While some tracks like "Песнью в жатве горя" are still melodic, others like "Духа палеву" still do borrow much from the darker portions of Branikald and offer a more darker and doleful landscape in the album. Overall, this album is perfect at blending in darkness with atmospheric melodic bits, which are only further executed with the effective composition.

And much like the previous album, the vocals work so well with the instruments. As expected, the vocals haven't changed much in delivery, as the screams and shrieks are still the same, which at this point, might seem like a bad thing. However, when paired up with these types on instrumentals, it's far from being bad. An excellent example of this is in the track "Лей, кровавая пена", which is another one of the darker tracks on here. Kaldrad adds in a bit of chanting in his screams, which make them boom more with pride and add in more hatred within the track. And as for the more melodic songs like "Песнью в жатве горя", the vocals enhance the sorrow and depressive elements with their painful screams. Kaldrad is probably one of the few vocalists out there that can produce the same sound, yet still sound fresh and interesting, and this album is no exception.

Forest has really outdid it this time. While the previous album was more melodic and atmospheric, this one takes more influences of its darker counterpart Branikald, and transforms the signature Forest sound into something that is more dark and creepy, but still makes the more melodic moments all the more better. This would be the last album Forest released in a while, but at that point, this was seen as yet another win in their fantastic discography.

Forest is a band that is relatively unknown to most people including most people who are into black metal. They’re somewhat well-known in NS circles because of their presence in The Pagan Front but even there that’s still some pretty underground stuff. And so be it as this is great for Forest’s image. A dark obscure Russian black metal band which only a few people know about, well suited to the vast forest-covered lands of Russia. However, the band’s founder and main member is Kaldrad Branislav, also founder of such Blazebirth Hall bands as Branikald, Nitberg and Vargleide as well as the vocalist for the somewhat more well-known folk black-metal band Temnozor. In any case, band information aside, this is As A Song In The Harvest Of Grief is Forest’s fourth album and another excellent element in the band’s discography.

Musically what we have here is an hour-long album of slow, grim and repetitive old-school black metal executed in a similar way to other Blazebirth Hall bands, mostly Raven Dark and Branikald. This is inspired by Burzum’s work, although there’s a solid difference as this is much grimmer and less accessible. What is probably the biggest influence by Burzum is the hypnotic effect caused by the entire album. Kaldrad has managed to create something much more evil though.

I’m not going to do a track-by-track review of the album or even name any highlights as this album is basically one long track…there’s a good amount of variation to be found but everything’s so consistent as to eliminate the need or even the possibility of noticing tracks that stand out from the pack. But that doesn’t mean it’s boring. It does, however, take a certain amount of patience to listen to this album. In the end it’s without a doubt all worth it as this album is one of the most evocative albums I’ve listened to up until now. This really takes you into a dark world of forests during the night and is one of those godly black metal albums which often send shivers down one’s spine as you listen to it.

The lyrics were written quite a while before the album, at least those for the fifth song, Spilt Be, The Scum Of Blood, which was written in 1992. It’s also the only song whose lyrics I can read as it’s the only one whose lyrics are included in the minimal two-page booklet that comes with the CD. If, however, the rest of the album is written in a similar fashion we’re dealing with and entire album of incredibly strong and deep lyrics which are definitely worth reading, although it’s a kittle tough to do so without understanding the Cyrillic alphabet for those included on metal-archives (I guess the lyrics in the booklet are translated).

So this is another great black metal album coming from the east, specifically from Russia, and one definitely worth getting. Of course, like all music by the Blazebirth hall, actually acquiring the albums is a little tricky, although it isn’t that bad for Forest since many black metal distribution sites and labels around Europe and North America seem to have at least some of the band’s albums, which is far from being the case for some of the other Blazebirth Hall bands, especially Branikald. In any case, find this if you can as it’s excellent and every true listener of black metal should have this.