ALBUM REVIEW: Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes – A Forest Of Stars

A FOREST OF STARS are a band that defy simple categorisation. Over the course of five excellent full lengths, the band have brought in a variety of different influences, from folk music to electronica, and blended them expertly with a powerful concoction of black metal and psychedelic influences, and tying it together with some great, clever lyrics that make great use of word play and a variety of vocal styles. The Leeds based septet have gone from strength to strength with each subsequent record, and their latest full length, Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes, could prove to be one of their best yet, rivalling even their brilliant break out record A Shadowplay For Yesterdays.

Persistence is All acts as a short, minimalist piece that sets the tone and raises expectations for the rest of the record. At little under two minutes, it does an excellent job of getting the listener ready of the album to come, with some great ambient pieces coupled with acoustic guitars and flutes coming together to builds plenty of tension, before launching straight into Precipice Pirouette, the first full track on the album; this leaves an indelible impression right off the bat. There’s a strong underlying cacophony, mostly down to the intense drumming, tortured vocals and dense guitar lines, which makes an excellent contrast for the hauntingly beautiful violin pieces and the sanguine atmosphere provided courtesy of the keyboards, which is at odds with the aggression and intensity of the rest of the music. This song ebbs and flows between nauseating and bleak sections with an avant-garde tinge, to far more measured, acoustic orientated ones that make great use of sweet melodies which help to provide a break from the songs harsher aspects. It suddenly launches into another motif that is equal parts dissonant and epic, blending a vast and atmospheric black metal sound with some genuinely imaginative flourishes, from the dancing drumbeats through to some more powerful violin pieces. It begins to gradually rise to a glorious crescendo, with the guitars injecting plenty of great moments into the proceedings that gel well with the bestial howl of the vocals. It’s a great track that kicks the album off with a whirlwind of emotive shifts and interesting, beguiling musicianship.

Tombward Bound, is a vast and powerful track, that blends dense guitars, bass and drums with a jarring and cutting edge from the violins. This has several noise and dark ambient influences on full display, which provides a certain amount of atmosphere that does a great job of adding a great amount of emotional weight to the vocals, which range from more measured, almost spoken word parts through to more pained howls and hideous snarls. This really is a testament to how versatile Mister Curse is as a vocalist. His harsher singing style meshes well with the trite and sanguine tones of Katherine‘s backing vocals. There’s a plethora of great guitar hooks here, which have a slight shoe-gaze like sound to their tone, and dance and weave in amongst the percussive elements of this track, which themselves have a chance to come to the fore and help take the music in a slightly different direction, with some energetic bhangra style motifs coming in as the track reaches its zenith. This track manages to cram a plethora of musical styles into a single song, without any aspect of it sounding like it’s forced or out of place.

Premature Invocation is another track that is initially a relaxed and laid back affair, that uses sparse but deeply eerie flutes and melancholic, sustained guitar chords to imbue the listener with a sense of anticipation for the rest of the song. It begins to slowly but surely build into a much more robust and beefy track, with a solid black metal influence, peppered with unorthodox guitar passages and off kilter drum patterns. The vocals are, by contrast noticeably more frenzied and filled with anguish, standing out immensely from the bulk of the track, which is, for A FOREST OF STARS, quite measured and reserved. There’s constant hints that the song with suddenly burst into life and head down a much more aggressive and driven route, but this never really materialises. This is a slow burning track that is full of masterful suspense and atmosphere, and shows that A FOREST OF STARS have nailed captivating their audience down to an art form.

Children of the Night Soil makes up for the lack of intensity really well, and is rabid and fierce right out of the gate. Shifting between thick and grating guitar tones and lighter, more angelic ones, they are able to take the listener through peaks and troughs of power and ferocity, sliding seamlessly between different motifs, speeds and degrees of emotional weight with ease, throwing in plenty of dissonance, quirky melodies and genuinely monstrous percussion to make this particular song one of the most sonically unrelenting on the whole album.

Taken By The Sea is sombre and morosely bleak track which comprises of some great violins and vocals from Katherine, which dominate the song for the vast majority of its running time. Compared with the rest of the record, this makes great use of only a few elements, opting for a more minimal approach. It’s not until after the half way mark that the guitars and drums begin to make their presence known, and rather than launching into something more ferocious, they only serve to add to the bleak atmosphere on here. This is a nice change of pace from the intensity and cacophony of the album up to this point, and shows that A FOREST OF STARS are able to craft excellent music even when the vast majority of the motifs that characterise their music have been stripped away.

The brilliantly named Scripturally Transmitted Disease, by far and away the longest track on the record, is a tour de force of monolithic musicianship that manages to fit a large amount of A FOREST OF STARS‘ diverse sound into its eleven minute span. There’s a solid black metal sound on this particular track, with various other elements added to the song as it progresses, from great flute melodies to sparsely used keyboard sections, which all stand out and clash brilliantly with the dense and acerbic black metal core of this track. This quickly begins to steer more towards electronic music, with lighter guitar tones and steady drumming backing up the now more prominent keyboards. As the band shifts towards acoustic guitars and more flutes, we get treated some excellent vocals courtesy of Katherine, who’s voice commands the listeners attention immediately. In spite of its length, this track proves to be one of the best on the whole record, standing head and shoulders above the majority of the rest of the music on offer here.

Decomposing Deity Dance Hall, the last track on the album, with its softer tones and hypnotic, psychedelic flourishes, is brilliant from start to finish. With several folk inspired parts blending with thunderous percussion and energetic, catchy guitar lines, this proves to be an instantly memorable track that showcases various aspects of the bands sound. There are some great keyboard compositions that add a noticeable gothic flare to the mix, making the whole track sound far more grandiose and powerful, and provides a plethora of ambience that gives the music a fuller sound. Towards the tracks climactic moments, it launches head long into a frenzied aural assault that rarely lets up. The buzz saw guitars and chaotic drumming come together to make for a suitably vicious and aggressive end to a song that started life as a much more melodic and relaxed number that brings the main part of this album to a close perfectly.

Grave Mounds and Grave Mistakes is yet another excellent album from a band renowned for producing excellent albums. The music on here is, as always, eclectic and brings in a diverse range of influence to create some truly great and unorthodox extreme metal. Everything, from the music, to the production and artwork, shows an intense attention to detail that many other bands don’t really go for, and the contrast between this album’s more ferocious moments and its more ambience based ones really works. This is a great follow up to Beware the Sword You Cannot See, allowing some of the more subtle elements in A FOREST OF STARS‘ sound to take a more central role on the album. There was no doubt that the band would be able to come out with yet another brilliant record, and if this is any indication, they clearly aren’t going to be running out of interesting and unique ideas any time soon.

Rating: 9/10

Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes is due for release on September 28th via Prophecy Productions.

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