A Forest of Stars – A Shadowplay for Yesterdays (2012)

The always riveting A Forest of Stars returns with yet another brilliant album that defies the limits of conventional music and mixes a very diverse spectrum of sounds and genres. In “A Shadowplay for Yesterdays”, the band features ten excellent tracks that will surely expand your horizons with a truly rich musical experience unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.

Described as a concept album, this new release features the typical mixture of genres by the band, but it also sounds very cohesive and dark. The atmospheric elements are one of the biggest staples of the band and they delivers excellent sections that set the mood just right, like on the opener “Directionless Resurrectionist”. The spoken passages give that deranged vibe that we love about the band’s music. Not breaking character, the tempo of “Prey Tell of the Church Fate” is quite slow and nicely builds up to the faster Black Metal-ish sections. The drums are very good, but the atmospheric elements are the ones that shine the most.

Interchanging between excellent melodic sections and faster/more aggressive parts, “A Prophet for a Pound of Flesh” delivers ten minutes of brilliant music. The violin in this track puts it as one of the best songs in the release and greatly enhances the somber atmosphere when paired with the flute sounds. If you like more aggressive things, “The Blight of God’s Acre” has some very nice ‘brutal’ moment, but it’s not until the end when things balance out and shift back into melodic passages. The very trippy and overly experimental “Man’s Laughter” has definitely some weird sounds and sections, but somehow feels like a proper transition to the rest of the album.

Our favorite track of the release has to be the completely deranged “Gatherer of the Pure”. In this song the band’s Avant-garde BM influences reach its highest levels and produce one of the oddest soundings tracks that amazingly merge madness and beauty. Another epic track that merges a classical vibe with distorted guitars and interesting tempos is “Left Behind as Static”. Closing with the lush two-part track “Corvus Corona”, the band really comes full circle with haunting keyboard melodies and excellent female vocals.

If you are a fan of the band, this release should not disappoint you since it’s a more grandiose representation of what the band has done in the past. The music is weird and sometimes chaotic, but it fits perfectly with what the band is trying to portray. Any fan of Avant-garde Black Metal should be drooling over the originality and creativity behind “A Shadowplay for Yesterdays”, so if you are still wondering if you should buy this release, the answer is a HUGE yes.

Release: July 20th, 2012 (Europe) / August 14th, 2012 (North America)

Genre: Experimental/Avant-garde Black Metal

Country: UK