Artist......: Stellar Forest
Album.......: Stellar Forest
Year........: 2025
Genre.......: Black Metal
Label.......: Transcendance
Cat.No......:
Source......: CDEP
Encoder.....: libFLAC 1.3.1 20141125
Quality.....: 1027kbps avg. / 44.1kHz / 2 channels
Playtime....: 00:29:17 (225.49MB)
R.date......: 2025-03-01
S.date......: 2025-01-10
Website.....: https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Stellar_Forest
01. I 4:24
02. II 3:34
03. III 4:57
04. IV 5:44
05. V 6:29
06. VI 4:09
blast beats and break beats meet in this realm of black metal /
trance techno sound.
Stellar Forest may be new but members Erroiak (vocals) and Septev
(all instruments) come with a lot of experience in black metal,
atmospheric black metal and dark ambient, and various
combinations of these genres. It's no surprise then that this EP
merges elements of these aforementioned styles into a hybrid
blackened techno / ambient synthesis, and moreover one that
manages to be savage and hard-hitting, noisy and cold, and at the
same time icy-glossy and polished, and trance-inducing, in a way
that electronic pop can be. Searing, burning tremolo BM guitars,
furious blast-beat percussion and spidery roaring, rasping vocals
meet a barrage of glacial dark ambient, minimalist coldwave
melody, glitch electronics and breakbeats: the range of
influences and inspirations brought by Erroiak and Septev are
mind-boggling but across all six tracks of the EP the black metal
elements are clearly defined and help to anchor the varieties of
non-metal music that pass through.
Tracks are numbered I to VI and can be treated as being mostly
instrumental, as Erroiak's screaming, wailing vocals tend more to
be one of various layers of sonic texture in each and every
track. At just under 30 minutes, the EP plays as a soundtrack to
a futuristic science fiction film just waiting to be made, once
the Stellar Forest men give their thumbs up to such a project.
The noisy scourging BM guitars and pounding drums may be upfront
across most tracks but the synthesisers and electronics fill the
spaces behind them, presenting a soundscape made intriguing,
mysterious and complex by all the contrasts of its component
musics and their interactions between and among one another.
As the EP continues, the music becomes more and more dreamy and
trance-inducing, as breakbeats and ambient drones start competing
for equal attention with the BM elements, sometimes superseding
them altogether (as on track III), and often it seems as if all
the angels in Heaven and the demons in Hell have come together in
one Almighty rave that ranges over the length and breadth of the
known cosmos. While parts of the music can be ugly and savage,
and melancholy can be found (especially on track 5), the overall
impression is of a sweeping glacial and abstract beauty that can
be ethereal and spiritual, and which is not usually malevolent
though neither is it completely benign. In all of this, Erroiak
and Septev do not forget that melody, riff and proper song
composition matter, and all songs feature these structural
constituents, even if in unusual ways.
A most singular sound universe of sweeping cold beauty,
terrifying and confronting, yet breathtaking in its scope and
ambition, beckons to all who might dare enter the Stellar Forest
realm.