Fornost Arnor

The Death of A Rose

Written by: PP on 07/04/2012 04:21:39

"The Death of A Rose" is the sophomore album by Britain's Fornost Arnor, and a likely candidate for a new entry in the discography of any serious Opeth-loving progressive death metal fan out there. Why, you ask? The answer is simple: Opeth has been the primary influence of Fornost Arnor when writing this album, whether it's the pounding, occasionally thunderous instrumental passages that rival the Swedish legends in every which way, or the echoing roars of their vocalist, who tries his best to be an instrument with his voice with clear inspiration from Mikael Åkerfeldt.

For the most part, Fornost Arnor have crafted a powerful and enchanting progressive death metal album that takes its cues from the best. There's no denying on who they've been listening to prior to the writing of this album, but that's okay, because they are quite successful in using Opeth's sound as a platform to form their own expression. Granted, it's very clearly a few steps below the genre masterminds, but then again, that is to be expected as we have seen from other fantastic bands in the genre such as Poland's Morowe or Spain's Nahemah. It's okay to sound like Opeth - kinda - as long as you write convincing songs that demonstrate depth and maturity far beyond that of your regular metal band.

That's something Fornost Arnor display throughout "The Death of A Rose": maturity. These are songs where much thought has been placed behind the scenes to adopt an intellectual feel to the songs and to avoid deafening simplicity. Instead, Fornost Arnor's songs are carefully crafted, whether you're dealing with lengthy sequences of melodic prowess or thunderous prog death with ripping lead guitars such as on "Path Marked Unknown". They balance the melody with brutality to an admirable degree, but most importantly, they manage to keep their lengthy (7+ minute) songs interesting throughout. That's a skill that should not be undermined as many prog metal bands simply get lost in their own sound in such long periods of time, but that is simply not the case with Fornost Arnor. They might not be the most original bunch out there, but do we really have enough Opeth influenced bands out there already? I don't think we've reached saturation point just yet.

7

Download: Nameless Fear, Aspire For The Darkest Hour, Path Marked Unknown
For the fans of: Opeth, Morowe, Nahemah
Listen: Myspace

Release date 11.07.2011
Witch-King Records

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