Forgotten Songs

Graveland started out as a primitive, mid-paced black metal outfit, akin to an evil version of Bathory’s ‘Hammerheart’ (1990), with very competent use of keyboards. This later transitioned into heavy Viking metal as he gradually ditched the blast beats, fattened up the guitars, added liberal use of choral effects (designed to sound like Valkyries), and wrote lyrics about old battles with disconcerting enthusiasm.

When Lord Wind formed it was essentially an extension of Graveland, with the ‘Conan the Barbarian’ soundtrack influence worn very much on its sleeve. His first full length released under this name, ‘Forgotten Songs’ (1996), could roughly be described as ‘Graveland light’ for want of a better phrase. Rob Darken beings by chanting us into the album over a liberal sprinkling of wind samples. His voice is deeply distorted, but it somehow sounds more strained on here than the works of Graveland, almost as if he is trying to imitate Mongolian throat singing.

Then the music kicks in, and we are treated to fifty minutes of very basic folk melodies, underpinned by simple percussion, and sometimes given additional texture through the use of lightly distorted guitars. These do not overpower the music however. The tone is similar to the halfway clean/distorted sound he achieved on ‘Following the Voice of Blood’ (1997). But if you go into this expecting the polished instrumentation of Wardruna or Tenhi then you will be disappointed. This is folk music not only as music, but also in the sense that anyone could play these simple melodies and tap out these simple rhythms.

One can picture the scene now, a group of warriors sat around the fire telling tales of battle, sharing music and celebrating the day’s labours. The catch is that we’re not warriors sat round a fire, we’re music fans listening to music, and this particular offering is highly repetitive and does not offer anything you cannot already find on a Graveland album. Taken on its own merits it comes across as an honest experiment, but one that maybe should never have made it out of Darken’s studio. For all the allusions to an organic or ancient aesthetic, these songs sound like they were written by a computer, indeed they would be at home as background music on ‘Age of Empires’. Whilst this judgement is not damning, it does mean that the quality of this music is highly dependent on context. It simply sounds like a half finished version of something better. Fifty minutes of unrealised potential.

Darken would iron out these shortcomings on future releases, creating slicker, more spacious soundtracks that genuinely do sound like a separate entity to Graveland. But ‘Forgotten Songs’, because of the distorted guitar and near constant tinny percussion, is too invasive to be thought of as background music, but not stimulating enough to hold one’s attention.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

The longing for old European traditions and the continent’s pagan past inspired Rob Darken to create a folky side project to Graveland. “Forgotten Songs” could basically be described as Graveland (especially the “Thousand Swords”/”Following the Voice of Blood” era) transformed into folk music. This album is performed with clean and distorted guitars, synths, percussion and vocals. The main difference between “Forgotten Songs” and the follow-up albums “Heralds of Fight”, “Rites of the Valkyries” and “Atlantean Monument” is that the others are instrumental and lack guitars.

Here Darken’s voice isn’t as cruel as it is in Graveland, instead it takes on a painful and strained tone as the story of the album unfolds. One can also hear the sound of wind (that should be obvious!) and even kettle drums on this album, all of which creates a medieval, sombre and barren, yet in places almost dreamy atmosphere. This is the music of people that lived a long time ago at the mercy of nature. But what’s important to remember is that Lord Wind doesn’t only bitch about a far-gone past. Darken uses this project to channel these ancient pagan sounds into today’s world. As it says in the booklet: “Our ancestor’s melodies are coming back. They are full of sadness and pain. They are cold but hope still smoulder in them”. The war ain’t over yet!

The first proper song, “War Song”, is an upbeat and triumphant instrumental track, played in quite a traditional folky manner. It sticks out a bit on this album, as it’s faster and shorter than the other songs. The following track, “Song Like Wind”, exemplifies the style of the majority of the album. It’s quite slow-paced and folky and the combination of synths, guitars and percussion paint a canvas for the vocals, which are the sound of a spirit, i.e. the Old Ghost, speaking to the listener directly from the mists of time. One riff in “Going to War” sounds similar to the riff on Veles’ “The Final Battle” track. Knowing Darken has been involved in said band, it’s probably no coincidence that he used the same riff here as well. One of my favourite tracks is “Signal for Fight”. It’s a very sombre mid-paced track with good agonised vocals and some great gravelandish keyboard harmonies. Unlike some other tracks here, it’s not too long either.

“Only Your Spirit Will Return” is almost hypnotic in its repetitiveness: the percussion plays a steady rhythm, the guitars and synths create the backdrop and the vocals come from a distance. The whole track sounds like a pagan ritual. The only negative factor is that at a bit over seven minutes it’s a bit too long, the repetitiveness becomes a problem. “Funeral Song” is a fantastic instrumental with very depressive riffs and synth choirs in the background following the riffs. The last track consists only of wind, some effects and what I think is a group of pagan warriors chanting “Arianrod Heil!”. On the whole this is a good and also rather original effort at combining folk with black metal influences. Folk music from a black metal perspective, I’d say.

This release, from Darken's side project, Lord Wind, just lead us to an ancient kind of story, where we see all the love for war and blood themes, telled to us by an kind of old man, the old ghost (wich we ear in every speaked tracks, with an old man's and cavernous voice), and epic folk sounds. It is just remarcable the work that Darken do with is capacities, to show us and to glorify the ancient side from the music he had created this Lord Wind project, and the first album it is just perfect.
The first song, the windstory of a "ghost", lead us to think that this is a album to honour the ancient ones, the roots of war. A acoustic atmosphere, with acoustic guitars, tribal percurssion and contemporaneous folk sounds, surrounded by a taste of modernity, with the keyboards, we are now deep in a war tale, with all the tribal and medieval aspects to make this album a artistic one. When there are no speaked tracks, Darken do an excellent retract of the name of the music, just using sounds. To make all this atmosphere more scary, in almost every track we can ear some wind sounds, made by this spirit, the heteronymous of Darken, the Lord Wind himself, the god of wind. I think that this idea it's just amazing, making the perfect ambient to a relaxing escape from the urban and grotesc reality of nowadays, to a more natural and beatifull zone, the zone of the forgotten sounds.
The album it's a "one song" to me, so i can not show any relevences, we have to ear the entire album if we want to absorve all the majestic art.

Forgotten Songs is not a metal release, but it has more spirit and power than most of the metal I've heard. Here, Darken takes the longing for ancient times and the heathen folk melodies of Graveland to the next level of purity. The album has themes of warfare, themes of tradition, themes of dedication to honor, to a long forgotten warrior ethos, and to the spirits of one's ancestors; all of which are presented with a strong pagan folk background and an unforgettable atmosphere that fires the imagination and truly takes the listener on a journey through the mists of the past.

The sound on Forgotten Songs is earthen and full, with simple folkish acoustic melodies flowing forward into repetitive movements over a foundation of primitive and well devised tribal drums, supported by tasteful, moody keyboard lines that stay well in the background and aid in the mythical atmosphere of the music. Distorted guitar is rarely present, and only makes its way into the foreground once on the album, during the doomy and truly somber track 10, "Funeral Song." Darken's restrained almost painful croak makes its presence known as he utters mournful, mythical, and epic tales and hymns to ancient ways and an ancient people. My favorite moment on this album is the combination of tracks 6 and 7: the spoken-word "Sword For Son" forms an enticing prelude for the epic "Father's Sword." Despite being largely instrumental, this sequence tells a remarkably vivid story; epic, for sure.