Forgotten Tomb - …And Don’t Deliver Us From Evil (2012)

After a very interesting “Under Saturn Retrograde”, Forgotten Tomb returns with their very weird mixture of Black Metal, Doom Metal, and Gothic Rock. In “…And Don’t Deliver Us From Evil” they deliver seven very inconsistent songs that the more we listen to it, the less and less we like it. Unlike “Under Saturn Retrograde”, this release just feels dull and aimless until the last two tracks that are quite decent.

Filled with dull sluggish Black Metal tracks, the first four songs in this release are a total snorefest and it is until “Love Me Like You’d Love The Death” that the band really delivers something listenable. With the extra layer of trippy melodic elements in this track, it really helps the band craft something enjoyable and quite engaging after we were about to give up. The guitar work is also worth mentioning since it is quite good.

The Rock-ish nature of “Adrift” really changes the mood of this release and it somewhat reminds us of Post-Black/Shoegaze bands like Lantlos and their trippy and aggressive style of music. This song also has a bit of Grey Waters and Avec Tristesse thrown in the mix with the lush guitar work overlaid on top solid clean vocals. If the band would have had more song like this in the release, a completely different fate would have awaited them.

Closing with “Nullifying Tomorrow”, the band nicely fuses their vanilla Black Metal with a few melodic elements that make this song be more enjoyable than the first few ones. The slowdown sections are well crafted thanks to some excellent guitar sections. Track keeps getting better and better as the more melodic sections near the 5 minute mark hit.

Overall, we are very disappointed in such a crappy release. If it wasn’t for the last three decent songs, we would be giving it 40 out of 100. The band clearly has a unique sound and musicians to make good music; we just don’t know what happened on this one. So unless you are a hardcore fan of the band, or want to buy a release for only three songs, stay away.

Release: October 30th, 2012 (Europe) / November 6th, 2012 (North America)

Genre: Black/Doom Metal

Country: Italy