### Forest Of Shadows: Six waves of woe

#### 19/01/09 || Euthanatos

I felt that, beginning a new metal year here at GD, I really wanted to start things off with a great album, but I didn’t feel I had any great albums in my hands. Fortunately, I received a message from a good friend in which he stated his favorite albums of 2008. At the top of that list was this album, Forest of Shadows’ “Six Waves of Woe”, which I then checked out and was consequently blown away by. Not only had I never heard of the band (this is only their second album anyway), but “Six Weaves of Woe” is a terribly wrist-slashing title. And when the band supposedly plays doom metal, an awful sense of impending boredom filled me. I was wrong; while Forest of Shadows do play a slow-paced doom, the appropriate clean vocals, occasional old school growls and fascinatingly stunning melodies make this quite a find.

The instrumental got me from the get go; everything is perfect, just the right amount of brutality (not too much) and soothing passages (not too gay). I know this kind of comparison has been done way too many times, but mix a little Swallow the Sun and Katatonia and you’ll definitely be real close to what Forest of Shadows does. But they’re also really original, which is incredibly surprising as we’re talking about doom metal here. Actually, I wouldn’t even call this doom metal. There isn’t a hint of despair here, apart from some furious growls every now and then. No, the atmosphere is much more haunting, in the sense of eerie surreality. Did that make sense? No, I didn’t think so.

True, the vocals, unlike the melodies portrayed by the instruments, might take a little getting used to. Somewhere between whining and honest sadness, after a while you’ll soon grow accustomed to them, and even begin to notice that nothing else would fit.

So, yeah, not all “Best of 2008” lists are as lame as ours here at GD. Lucky for us, eh?

The cover: Beautiful landscape, haunting as the music.

8 doomy gloomy goodness out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Firebox
- Website: www.forestofshadows.com
- Band
- Niclas Frohagen: guitars, synth, programming, vocals

- Tracklist
- 01. Submission
- 02. Selfdestructive
- 03. Detached
- 04. Moments In Solitude
- 05. Pernicious
- 06. Deprived