(written by Islander)
Deciduous Forest is the solo project of Brisbane-based Snjór, guitarist with Graveir and live guitarist for Hebephrenique, Brimstone, and Bruxa. Deciduous Forest drew its inspirations from terrains of atmospheric black metal, neofolk, and blackgaze and announced itself last year with the debut album Fields Of Yore. Now a second album has been prepared, one named Hymns of Time. The Apocalyptic Witchcraft label, which will release the album in January, has described it as “both a continuation of Fields Of Yore and an evolution of Deciduous Forest as a whole, revealing more of its sylvan landscape and haunted spirit of betrayal, regret and loss.”
The album unfolds like a journey through a vast and daunting primeval realm of light and shade, and as a traversing of harrowing and haunting internal realms as well. It is five songs long, and what we have for you today is the premiere of the fourth of those, “Celestial Forests“.
The song begins vibrantly and it brightly gleams, with acoustic guitars dancing and piano keys slowly ringing. Granted, you might get a bit of sinister feeling from the vivid guitar melody, and that feeling will grow as ominous hornlike tones emerge and gradually heave above jumping beats, urgently throbbing low frequencies, and swaths of sizzling abrasion.
The music ebbs and becomes more dreamlike (but no less sinister) as the piano elegantly re-takes a lead role along with shimmering strings, and it flows again with renewed intensity, an intensity amplified by the appearance of ragged, beastly snarls. Broad cascades of majestic melody sweep across the song’s upper reaches, and the drumming creates electrifying rhythmic accents (which would be right at home in a prog metal or hard rock band).
Deciduous Forest reprises the song’s changing phases, sinking them deeper into the listener’s mind, but also injects a hard-cutting and hard-jabbing riff that’s joined by soaring symphonic synths and tormented screams. You can feel the song building toward a crescendo, and when it gets there it brings forward a gloriously swirling and fret-melting guitar solo.
The rhythm section stir up the energy in electrifying fashion while ethereal keys both flow and dart, and other ingredients frantically and harshly attack. At the end, we return to glinting acoustic strings, more haunting in their presence this time.
It is an enthralling song, one that generates visions of ancient arboreal canopies, glistening streams, dark shadows, painful regret, and persistent wonder. And it’s accompanied by an equally enthralling video — which we present now:
Hymns of Time was recorded and mixed by Adam Merker (Aversions Crown, Disentomb, etc) and mastered by Chris Themelco (The Amenta, Werewolves, etc). Drums on the title song were performed by Jackson Caswell.
The album will be released by Apocalyptic Witchcraft on CD and digital formats on January 29th, and they recommend it for fans of: Wolves In The Throne Room, Agalloch, Panopticon, October Falls.
PRE-ORDER:
https://orcd.co/apw076
https://deciduousforest.bandcamp.com/album/hymns-of-time-2
DECIDUOUS FOREST:
https://www.instagram.com/deciduousforestaus
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0udRQ48Qmd3wHyrk25GSjL
https://deciduousforest.bandcamp.com/