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Album Details

• Artist: A Forest Of Stars
• Album: The Opportunistic Thieves Of Spring
• Label: Transcendental Creations
• Year of Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2010-09-24

 

A Forest of Stars mixes their black metal and stoner sides pretty well, especially on the opener, "Sorrow's Impetus." Don't be afraid of the Spinal Tap-ian title: "The Opportunistic Thieves of Spring" rocks and keeps a hypnotic groove throughout. True, most of the six songs are over ten minutes long, but only rarely does the band wear out its sonic welcome. This is epic stuff trying to be epic stuff and succeeding as...epic stuff.

"Raven's Eye View," "Summertide's Approach" and "Thunder's Cannonade" all build to a majestic and heavy groove, which then maintains a cold wall of wounding sound similar to the best of the Norwegian bands who do this better than anyone else. The vocals, by one Mister Curse, even at their most typically croaking, have an edge and menace that is increasingly harder to pull off these days.

Unfortunately, the set closes with the two worst songs. "Starfire's Memory" and "Delay's Progression" are misty, ponderous, semi-acoustic fantasy pieces done in by their own self-parody. Guitarist Mr. T.S. Kettleburner (given the names the members have chosen for themselves, I'm sure other things are burned in their world) must have been chomping at the built to lay down one of those glacial riffs at which he's proven himself adept.

In all though, UK's A Forest of Stars announce their powerful and genuine presence. Ditch the keyboards and they'll be monsters. "The Opportunistic Thieves of Spring" is a very heavy slab of psychedelic, doomy blackness

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