Day: April 14, 2015

To understand the actual value of Forgotten Tomb is sufficient to make a mental review of their musical knowledge, trying to remember how many are the bands that, in over fifteen years of career and at least seven active albums, have consistently maintained a standard of quality so high. Very few, I guess, and among these the creature of Herr Morbid is one of those who are still active today without any intention to give up, as evidenced by an excellent work as Hurt Yourself And The Ones You Love. As I already had occasion to say on the occasion of the previous And Don’t Deliver Us From Evil, Forgotten Tomb have changed their skin compared to the roughness of the beginnings, yet, paradoxically, they have never been as heavy as today, with a sound recognizable in every step and able to draw from various genres, maintaining a dark and anything but reassuring from the first to the last note. Compared to the previous album, the songs appear even deeper and the doom component perhaps stands out as never before in the abundant production of the band from Piacenza: the guitars sound full-bodied and distorted, and, to this landing, could not be entirely alien to the experience of Herr Morbid with Tombstone Highway, a band that saw him struggling with a formidable proposal of southern doom. It’s not a coincidence that the two songs that impress the most are those that carry this seed: first Bad Dreams Come True, especially in its initial phase, since then opens up to one of the rare and impressive melodic black outbursts, then especially the monolithic Dread The Sundown, a track that probably marks one of the highest moments of the entire discography of the band from Emilia, with its riff from the almost exhausting heaviness that, especially in the final part, causes an alienating effect hard to explain if not try it for yourself. The opener Soulless Upheaval, the title track, Mislead The Snakes and the more catchy (relatively, of course) King Of The Undesirables, carry within them the stigmata of a sound that never borders on perfection, thanks to the admirable and gradual insertion of elements that have brought it from the depressive black of the first albums up to this form of metal that keeps the spirit unchanged, though without exhibiting it in a raw and direct way as it happened at the beginning of the last decade. The melancholic ambient of Swallow The Void puts an end to an album unassailable from any point of view. Outside our borders Forgotten Tomb are envied a bit by all, it would be time to finally show that even in Italy a substantial number of people are able to appreciate more extreme forms of art, as has been happening for some time in many other countries.

2015 – Agonia Records / Inferna Profundus Records