ALBUM REVIEW: Forgotten Paths – Saor

Black metal, for all it’s visceral aggression, can be something truly beautiful. On the surface, it is an ugly, abrasive style of heavy music, championing hatred and misanthropy. But scratch below of surface of the genre’s heavyweights, and there is a very real beauty there. Be it a love of nature, a wistful longing to a simpler time, or a passionate retelling of old tales. And none embody the beauty of what the genre can achieve quite like SAOR. The Scottish one-man band is the product of Glasgow’s Andy Marshall, and through his already-impressive discography SAOR have perfectly translated the beauty, unforgiving nature and conflict of Scotland’s landscape and history into a fantastic musical format. Following on from 2016’s incredible Guardians, Marshall is back with SAOR‘s fourth full-length, Forgotten Paths.

When a band releases an album with the paralleled strength of Guardians, the following release is always going to be judged against it, sometimes excessively so. And there’s one stumbling block Forgotten Paths immediately faces: it’s length. Though 38 minutes is a fairly average run time, by SAOR‘s standards Forgotten Paths is a comparably short record, and by a fair margin. It seems strange to call a four track album that’s just shy of 40 minutes overly short, but when compared to the 55-minute length of Guardians, it does come as a bit of a disappointment and the listener is left wanting just a touch more. However, in the ways that matter most, Forgotten Paths takes all of the brilliance of its predecessor and smashes it out of the park. From the songwriting to the production, Marshall has seriously upped his game, and there is no doubt that this is the best album in SAOR‘s discography – even if it doesn’t stack up in terms of length.

SAOR waste no time, diving straight into Forgotten Paths‘ title track and going straight for the jugular. Starting off what is a very emotional album in a totally visceral way pays dividends. Punishing drums and blackened riffs drive forward underneath the soaring, Celtic melodies from guest violinist Lambert Segura, while Marshall barks his vocals. Despite the melody and the brief interludes of atmospherics, the opening half of Forgotten Paths is a vicious start, wonderfully juxtaposing the far softer, melancholic second half which sees guest vocalist Neige of ALCEST take centre stage with beautiful, mellow clean singing and the Celtic melodies become more prominent. As Marshall screams under the overbearing melodies, it’s clear than Forgotten Paths is the perfect song to embody SAOR‘s sound – dark, brutal and unforgiving, but hauntingly beautiful.

In stark contrast to the immediate ferocity the title track opened Forgotten Paths with, Monadh begins as a far more melodic, melancholic affair. Opening with soft guitars and a beautiful, simple piano building into the body of the song, where Segura‘s violin maintains a deep, sombre sense of despair amid the heavier guitars and drums, Monadh has a very natural progression into the black metal that makes up the root of SAOR‘s sound. Around the five minute mark, Marshall transitions into softer, clean singing as things take a turn to the melodic, melancholic and atmospheric style of the opening minutes.

Forgotten Paths comes to a close by prefacing the album’s shortest track with its longest. Fans were first given a taste of Bròn with the absolutely stunning music video SAOR released in January. However, the album version clocks in a full four minutes longer than the video. Bròn is arguably the strongest track on the album, perfectly combining the tried and tested elements of SAOR‘s sound and maintaining the gloomy, melancholic atmosphere established thus far in Forgotten Paths, while the addition of Glasgow singer/songwriter Sophie Rogers gives the chorus a really catchy feel. Bagpipes can often feel a bit twee when combined with metal, but like everything else on Forgotten Paths, Marshall has managed to incorporate them perfectly within the darkness of SAOR. The final moments of Bròn leads perfectly into closing track Exile, a beautiful, haunting piece, devoid of the heavy aspects of SAOR‘s sound, that brings Forgotten Paths to a heartbreaking end.

In Gaelic, SAOR means “free,” or “unconstrained.” And while there’s a strong argument to be made that this is a fitting name for a Scottish band, “free” perfectly describes SAOR‘s music on a deeper level than the stereotypical, Braveheart-influenced view some have of Scotland’s people. Though, at the roots, SAOR is a black metal band, Marshall seemingly effortlessly shakes off the shackles of genre guidelines, allowing Forgotten Paths to channel a variety of influences into a sound that is as atmospheric, hauntingly beautiful and emotional as it is heavy, dark and abrasive. Forgotten Paths is simply majestic, best enjoyed alone, in the dark, with a whisky in hand. This is an early contender for album of the year – and a strong contender, at that.

Rating: 9/10

Forgotten Paths is set for release February 15th via Avantgarde Music. 

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