Album Review: Forlesen, Black Terrain
A thing to celebrate. The advent of a second Forlesen album, titled Black Terrain and issued by the respected I, Voidhanger Records, comes after the band’s striking 2020 debut, Hierophant Violent (review here), and finds the now-Portland-based four-piece reveling in a lush aftermath of contemplative cross-genre singularity. At four songs, 59 minutes, it carries over the debut’s predilection toward longform craft, but offers more variety in that regard as “Strega” (19:57) and “Saturnine” (18:07) bookend as the opener and closer, respectively, with “Black Terrain” (8:58) and “Harrowed Earth” (12:29) between. This structure is complemented by a linear thread that carries through across the entire span, bolstered by strong divisions of movements in “Strega” and “Black Terrain” especially — perhaps an indicator of shorter pieces coming together as part of the recording process to make each piece; it wouldn’t be a surprise if Forlesen had a four-minute song on their next record, if only because they seem so intent on breaking rules that they’re bound to turn that inward at some point — and results in an overarching flow that presents Black Terrain as one consuming entirety.
This union happens despite the individual tracks having a distinct direction and style, and makes moments like the bursting-forth of “Harrowed Earth” from out of the drone-hypnosis of “Black Terrain” another level on which the care put into this creation can and should be appreciated. At times horrific, Black Terrain is no less engaging for its wretched aspects. It finds Alex “Ascalaphus” Lindo (vocals, guitar, bass, keys, harmonium), Beth “Bezaelith” Gladding (vocals, guitar, bass, synth, lyrics on “Black Terrain”) and drummer Sam “Maleus” Gutterman — who all have arthouse-worthy pedigrees that I’m not going to list because, two albums in, Forlesen is pedigree enough — joined by “Petit Albert” Yeh (guitar, Hammond, backing vocals, synth), with guest glockenspiel and trumpet from (the) Leila Abdul-Rauf, and manifests a sense of world-creation that is its own. It is and isn’t black metal, doom, post-whatever, was reportedly three years in the making — that puts at least some of it as contemporary to the first album, which is interesting — and offers depth enough to truly lose oneself within. An active listen, be it headphones-on or not, is rewarded with boldness of scope, confidence of performance and a sense of the progression underway in Forlesen‘s sound, different styles beginning to fuse themselves into something new, as might happen on something that feels both so epic and personal.
“Strega” begins with a mounting horror drone, almost like cats but maybe people — if you saw Nope, the mind might go there — and piano-laced doom emerges. A layer of guitar seems just to be for maybe-looped noise, but there is an immediate melodic complexity, even before vocals align with organ in the verse. Drums depart for mournful prog shoegaze, keys reminding of Ancestors‘ “First Light,” so too the breadth of the sweep that ensues at four minutes in. Layers and multiple singers top a slow ascending progression, almost ceremonial, and blackened, screaming vocals first enter subtly at the end of a verse, deep in the mix for atmosphere. This will happen again. Already there is motion, the listener is picked up and transported in it. The lead guitar feels skeletal but isn’t at all, adding to the drama of the proceedings before being complemented by the clean vocals and more prominent keys, holding on through the ensuing march again upward. Screams return to mark another verse ending, much less imaginary-feeling this time, and ghoulish layers of probably-vocals lead into a goth rocker riff that could unite doom, duly poised and unrepentantly heavy in tone. Hearing it, I find I can’t get away from feeling like it is religious.
There’s a deadpan layer in the vocals, which makes the “Strega” sound even more like chanting. They sweep again, the guitar solo this time leading the movement toward a more decisively black metal verse progression, running through some particularly cavernous effect. It is at least part psychological trauma. From there everything drops out right at about 11:01 and a raw and badass riff is teased for a measure before far-back strum hits into that same verse, basically alone though everyone still feels present in the room, sonically speaking if not actually there (most recording took place in home studios).
A folkish verse starts and the melody from Gladding brings SubRosa‘s depressive triumph “Despair is a Siren” to mind, splash cymbal behind for punctuation. It’s still a build. Whispers enter, voices joining in, one of them Bowie-esque in the line that ends with “fire.” There’s a chorus of voices then, nearly ’70s pop and praise upon it, until a scream hits at 15:49 and the song eats itself again. Screams and Gladding‘s and Lindo‘s clean vocals together; guitar solo duly grandiose as the screams leave and the instrumental hook line is reinforced. The last guitar solo is still of the extreme metal variety, but gorgeous and not at all glib about the over-the-top progression surrounding where it feels like it could be. With less than two minutes to go, the screams run deep in the mix as things have started to come apart but pick up a final wind to close with an earned-feeling verse on their part. It is done, beautifully.
Noise at the beginning of the title-track echoes the start of “Strega” but is less nightmarish, forming the bed of what will be essentially a single linear build over the course of the song’s just-under-nine-minutes. If it’s theatrical, it’s experimental theatre. Vocals enter softly in repeated melodies — what might be words, it’s hard to tell — and the guitar is there almost before its presence registers in the mind, the patience extending to the introduction of drums. There are layers of chanting vocals soon enough to complement the barely-there verse, but the heavier guitar strum at 5:05 marks a definite arrival, touching ground in a way that even the far-back, maybe-looped drum progression — intentionally vague like the verse in a whirling fog moving intentionally maddeningly into and through harmony with the chant behind, lead guitar waking up and adding a few notes to the morning prayer — wouldn’t quite harness.
That moment when the guitar hits, there’s an inhale right before that’s not audible on the recording but definitely there, and the riff is a drone as well, playing off the when-did-that-happen established melody of the vocals, becoming grand with the keyboard behind and the chanting drone, distortion ringing out in all this open space. Then a voice howling more distinctly, almost shouting those notes, then screaming, turning hellish at about 7:30 in, deep under cymbal wash. The air turns gruesome; body gore, a visceral twisting. Cymbals are looped, backwards, maybe everything is looped, I can’t even tell you. Maybe the universe is looped. Maybe you’re looped. It is a headfuck of a moment of a song. And then it ends suddenly, exploding.
So enters “Harrowed Earth,” seamlessly and with immediate thrust from the title-track. The sprint is full, heads down black metal intensity, righteous blasting rising, still black metal, churning. Screaming, vocals are deep back, then scathing at the fore. Spitting words. Furious. Glorious. There is a line of melodic guitar standing out in the mix, sort of surveying the devastation being wrought, minimal but surrounded by these furies. It’s psychedelic, truly, and some of the best psych metal I’ve ever heard. And it’s barely half the song. It turns clear-headed in bite for a moment but shifts back to that world it has begun to rip apart, howls and screams and growls dwelling in it viciously. That melodic guitar line is still there, sounding more discordant amid the pummel.
For all its black metal pageantry, whole-album-shifting presence, and this-is-where-we-wreck-shit mentality, “Harrowed Earth” is still fairly trippy in this stretch, crashing into so a running lead guitar can take off at the head of the mix. It sings past four and a half minutes with the drums chasing behind but is ultimately swallowed by the vocals, mostly high-throated and universally nasty, then human shouting, then human screaming. Crash again, the fading cymbal hits, distorted guitar. “Harrowed Earth” is brought almost to silence at about six minutes in, the stark break to the second movement letting it begin more or less as a new song with the song, and yes, the pairing is important.
A re-arrival of vocals is announced with kick drum, subsequently used to punctuate harmonized verse measures. At 7:50, it thunders into death-doom, melodic vocals over low growls, rolling movement, slow and marching; spiritual-trial-underway, not victory or funeral yet. Screams mark change to a guitar solo atop the lumbering, hypnotic than dramatic but definitely both, and plotted in its transitions as part of the unfolding drama. Piano, if that’s what it is, joins vibrantly. Vocals and lead guitar and there’s still growling somewhere in there until a whole bunch of everything drops out for a bit before being revived as the song’s final movement. The funeral, incidentally. There’s melody belted out mournfully, lines folkish and graceful and immersive, and it might be keys, or Hammond, guitar, who knows, as it fades out. Little to do but survey the dead.
“Saturnine” begins with a misdirection of heavy, distorted guitar drone. Four weighted strums before it disappears. Not yet a minute in, the finale of Black Terrain has filled out the residual feedback with another intertwining ambient hum, and this becomes the bed for much of what ensues, building one measure at a time toward a yet-unknown but inevitable destination, mirroring somewhat the title-track, but changed for the proceedings there and in “Harrowed Earth” between. Just after three minutes in, a more prominent hum takes hold and carefully places the central melody in the listener’s mind, where it will become a theme to which Forlesen return throughout. They’re building toward introducing the drums but refuse both being rushed and rushing it, and having already done the work to debunk expectation across the three songs prior, the inclination to follow where “Saturnine” leads feels natural.
It’s not necessarily percussive, but there’s a rhythmic echo behind, and a bell is struck (harmonium?) with these probably-loops surrounding, with Abdul-Rauf entering on duly melancholic trumpet at about 6:30, which they keep vague and deep in the mix — plenty of room — rather than have it burst outward, not quite a drone instrument by its nature, but long notes just the same. 8:17, harsh feedback and low distorted riff, slow, slow, slow still. It’s a major change and over the course of the next minute-plus, one can almost hear ghost vocals screaming lines that may or may not actually be there, but it feedbacks out and fades and at last, the drums begin just past the 10-minute mark. There’s clearer guitar now, echoing the earlier melody if not following the pattern exactly, and a heavy shoegaze gradually moves forward led by a central riff and the surrounding keys. The backing drones are gone but there’s a layer of lead guitar hitting the root notes before Lindo begins singing the verse, soon joined in harmony before a full roll begins at about 12:45, drones rising alongside.
The echoing voices, the drums stepping back to give space but keeping time on hi-hat, and the once more ascendant progression of the march — there might even be a layer of backward guitar there — all seem to call back to “Strega,” but “Saturnine” has its own personality as well, post-black metal in its airy melodicism but still doomed even in its defiance of that spirit. The big finish, then, is emotional. Circa 15:45, a quick thud-thud-thud-thud buildup on drums brings on a held vocal note and a guitar solo that is the crescendo for closing track and album alike; the rhythm guitar track going so far as to throw in a pickslide just in case the message didn’t come through clear enough. As a unit, a band, they ride that part and give due justice to the entirety of the work they’ve done before, crashing into another Gregorian-style verse before, at last, everything seems to let go suddenly. An amp hums, there’s a wisp of feedback, and that’s it.
I don’t imagine many, if any, who started out reading this review have made it this far. Fine. If you take nothing else away from the glut of play-by-play above, take that it seemed warranted given the creative achievement that Forlesen have in what’s still just their second record. One doesn’t want to get into hyperbole (too late), but at a time of year when best-of-this-and-that is on the brain, it’s hard not to think of Black Terrain as something that will outlast 2022, and its reach and sense of flourish will continue to speak to listeners for years to come. In the best case scenario, Forlesen would influence others to try and harness the same heights and depths, but I’m shaking my head as I write this because honestly, what they do here is so much their own that it’s hard to imagine another band taking them on as an influence and not falling flat. But it’s happened before; Forlesen have their influences as well.
As Black Terrain followed Hierophant Violent, so too something will follow it, at least hopefully. For everything accomplished here, it’s worth reiterating that the growth that Forlesen have undertaken between the first album and this one does not feel finished. They do not sound like they’ve said all they have to say as either emotive songwriters or bringers of aural extremity, and whatever they might do subsequent to it, Black Terrain feels like a landmark, regardless of genre. Recommended.
Forlesen, Black Terrain (2022)
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Tags: Black Terrain, Forlesen, Forlesen Black Terrain, I Voidhanger Records, Oregon, Portland
