Forest of Impaled
Forward The Spears
8.5
Black metal in the US is uncommon, stellar American black is rare, which makes Forest of Impaled’s new album all the more impressive. Forward the Spears serves as a reminder to the genre that through all the acrobatic drumming and battles to be the most blasphemous, a great metal album lives and dies by its guitarwork. Venomous riffage is something that FOI has in abundance. Granted, the machine-gun-like speed and precision of Duane Timlin (Divine Empire, Sarcophagus) is a beneficial factor in their success. Adrian Adamus and Marek Trela are the duo responsible for the evil whirlwind of riffs contained within. Marcus Kolar rounds out the band, handling bass and vocal duties, bringing with him the standard, blackened, raspy cadence that we’ve come to expect from this style. Aesthetically, Forest of Impaled play a thrashy form of blackened death metal, always charging forward with aggression, unceasing drumwork, and a hefty dose of demonic melodies, a’la Dissection at their most intense. Comparisons can also be made to the blacker side of Zyklon and to the relentless assault of Absu. The production is quite good for black metal as well. Surprisingly, the drums sound the worst, but that's due to a more organic sound than I'm used to hearing. Even in the midst of all of Timlin’s drumming, the guitars and vocals come through loud and clear, with a perfectly sinister guitar tone to boot! It’s hard to choose noteworthy tracks, as there are no slouches. The opener and title track earns kudos for making such a pummeling song so catchy, and not in a bad way. A spoken-word section really pounds home the message that this track is about one thing and one thing only: total war. It inspires me to want to raise my sword and charge across the battlefield in search of infidel blood. “The Fall of the Trinity” strays much further into death metal territory, investing heavily in the Zyklon approach to mayhem. “Orgy of Unearthly Delights” features a totally unexpected interlude straight from Sentenced’s epic North From Here album, before resuming the attack. “Into the Mouth of Oblivion” is more melodic than the rest of the album, but don’t think Gothenburg, think of the intense manner that bands like The Black Dahlia Murder handle matters. I’m hoping that Forward The Spears signals an uprising of US black metal, as the few bands I’ve heard have generally been pleasing, mixing in American death and thrash influences into the traditional Scandinavian style. This album is an unrelenting slab of fury, unyielding, bearing down on you like an M1 Abrams, inevitably shattering you into millions of useless pieces. Fucking killer!
