Artist: (Psychoparalysis) (Finland) Album: Forest of Ignorance (Demo, 2010) Genre: (Melodic) Death Metal Much as an album cover is only the wrapping and says right about diddley squat about what’s inside, first impressions more than often are made by the art work on the front. When I saw that cover – great in concept, not so great in execution, it’s a bit flat and bland don’t you think? – I half expected some rather amateurish, quarter-arsed produced basement Metal. Not so! This shit’s pretty goddamn decent! (Psychoparalysis) – the brackets need to be there – sure is a lot better at performing its musical ideas than it is at graphical arts!

With Forest of Ignorance, the fresh four-pieced band from Uusimaa, Finland, released its second demo since the band came to be in 2009. Both demos were released in 2010 and so it seems the band is serious about getting its name out there. Must be why guitar-man and vocalist Anssi Kantola sent us their promo pack, including Forest of Ignorance.

Like I said, by expectations were diluted by the cover art and the first few chords didn’t change much about that. But then, when the intro of the first song, entitled Truth Altered, passed some fuckin’ groovy, chocolaty riffs appeared and made my drive to work this morning all that more enjoyable. The song’s loaded with sophisticated melodic and dynamic riffs and contains a slow but spiced guitar solo. Moreover, it’s a lengthy motherfucker, as are all three songs on the demo. We figured we’d get you right up to speed on what we’re dealing with here, so here’s the song, uploaded especially for you!

While my first spin of this demo was good, I got even more out of it when I listened to it again. I seemed to be hearing a lot more subtleties and melodies hidden in the façade of rock-crunching riffs and blunt thundering vocals. It’s like old-school, but with a couple of extra layers under the superficial one. Now, when I’m listening to it again I’m hearing even more stuff I hadn’t yet heard. This is good, it means there’s replay value!

One of the first subtleties I picked up at closer listen, was the gentle oriental sauce that’s spread over the songs. It gives the songs humongous power to please, kinda like the effect of your lady spitting dirty language at you when you’re busy making babies. I imagine.

The demo’s title track is the one to be last on this release and it’s got a somewhat different feel from the other two songs. It’s darker at distinct points, the vocals seem a bit raspier, some riffs are thrashier while others are deeper. There’s distortion on the bass guitar, which might have been there in the other songs, except that I didn’t hear it there. But most importantly, it just feels, most of the three, like it’s telling a story. Not sure what the story is, but the fact that it’s got a crapload of moodswings, including a bass-only tension-building break, and an epic ending must mean something’s going on.

Forest of Ignorance is a cunning display of musical abilities. The fact that I’ve been able to write a good 600 words about just three songs is a clear sign for this. I’m not sure whether you’ll be able to buy this baby somewhere – probably not – so I can only recommend you give this band some love, and I foretell that we’ll be hearing more from these chaps. They’ve got a shitload more to do in this world!

My Grade: 8.5/10
Buy this when:

Tags: death, Finnish, melodeath, melodic, old-school, review

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.