It’s a sign of how impressed I am with the Quebecois metal noir scene that anything that Sepulchral Productions sends my way causes my hopes to rise. Even if I have never heard of the band, this is the case. Now I had heard of Sombre Forets, but as is the isolated and often obscure nature of the scene I had never heard them and this is their third album since 2006. It is a one man project, Annatar the man in question, and it moves very much in the realms of the windswept and the howl of nature rather than the sometimes folk tinged frantic skins of some other compatriots.
Slow and measured, a sombre (!) piano refrain opens the album, a sound of minimal movement, of drops of water falling somewhere before the cold crash of darkness, perhaps even storm waters and the stretched, howling vocals. There is a beautiful, measured darkness and a fire here. Everything builds around, crashes over that piano refrain. The vocals are that perfect, tortured howl reminiscent of early Elend and …In The Woods, an almost neo classical feel to the keyboards strengthening this. Wavering between sift, bleak quiet and overwhelming storm ‘Au Flaumbeau’ is a finely judged piece; a scene setting and a journey beginning. We know where we are, the lay of the land, and the more guitar driven ‘Brume’ takes us further in. Edging more towards older Forteresse in some ways, it is a long, involving song, a balance of the fragility and the irresistibility of the violence as the waves of crashing, clashing vocals and riffs rise and fall between moments of more flowing power. Harsh, bleak and quite beautiful.
‘Des Epaves’ begins with a strange almost Sigur Ros sound but despite the acoustic guitar and clean choral vocals it never sets foot in the dreaded post rock pitfall. Juddering, backwards sounding keys and guitar rattle and arch their way through the landscape on this and ‘Effrondment’ adding a more chaotic feel between the softer piano interludes. Despite these contrasting sound though, the album never feels disjointed or the songs fractured; there is a feel and a flow and the atmosphere lays heavy upon it all. Darkness closing in for the winter, the death of the sun indeed. ‘L’Ether’ has that heavy Elend feel, with the black metal continually rising over the neo-classical and the driven drums there to push it all forwards. ‘La Disparition’ has passages of almost unaccompanied, tortured cries or crashing cymbal heavy drumming, but always a great sense of the kinetics of music pervades. ‘Etrangleur De Soleils’ leaves us with an undulating melody and those magnificent vocals and when it ends the world goes a little still. It is all kind of mesmerising, trapped inside another world music.
I am not saying that this is reinventing anything, or even pushing a genre forwards but, like the impression I get from others in the wonderfully introverted Quebecois scene like the excellent new Monarque album, that appears the be the concern of others not these artists. Sepulchral continue to bring us real riches from the darkness.
This album is about the music and the feel not fashions or trends or money. There is a purity to this vision that I love and respond deeply to. If you like the howling, the windswept and the flowing then Sombres Forets are there just waiting for you to find them.
(8.5/10 Gizmo)
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sombres-For%C3%AAts/188867451269971
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