September 28 street date. Description
Deluxe two CD set including bonus tracks. 2018 release. The year is 1898. The Gentlemen's Club of A Forest of Stars invites you to a midnight performance of their latest maniacal masterpiece, Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes. This exclusive brotherhood embraces the decadent, conflicting nature of their Victorian England, weaving sickly gin-tinged thoughts with bizarre, hypnotic melodies to fully express the decadence of their era. 120 years later, in the year 2018, A Forest of Stars would be nothing less than one of the UK's leading avant-garde black metal outfits. On Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes, the septet takes William Blake's proverb of Hell "Exuberance is beauty" as it's principle, and celebrates lushness and excess in their music, lyrics and artwork. As an exploration of a struggle against insanity, it also represents the band's desire to revisit earlier works. A more atmospheric album than it's predecessor, 2015's Beware The Sword You Cannot See, this album has nods to the previous sonic explorations on 2012's A Shadowplay For Yesterdays. We also hear the band utilizing more open space and sound textures in addition to their trademark avant-garde black metal, dipping into the raw sounds of 2010's Opportunistic Thieves of Spring. The lyrics build upon themes of loss, death and inevitability, describing scenes of decay and destruction - magniloquent, abstract, metaphoric, with an abysmal message at it's core. Like the crazed tenant swearing he hears the dead man's heart, Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes writhes upon the floorboards, bashing it's head in and screaming, "let me out".
September 28 street date. Limited double 180gm vinyl LP pressing in gatefold jacket. 2018 release. The year is 1898. The Gentlemen's Club of A Forest of Stars invites you to a midnight performance of their latest maniacal masterpiece, Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes. This exclusive brotherhood embraces the decadent, conflicting nature of their Victorian England, weaving sickly gin-tinged thoughts with bizarre, hypnotic melodies to fully express the decadence of their era. 120 years later, in the year 2018, A Forest of Stars would be nothing less than one of the UK's leading avant-garde black metal outfits. On Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes, the septet takes William Blake's proverb of Hell "Exuberance is beauty" as it's principle, and celebrates lushness and excess in their music, lyrics and artwork. As an exploration of a struggle against insanity, it also represents the band's desire to revisit earlier works. A more atmospheric album than it's predecessor, 2015's Beware The Sword You Cannot See, this album has nods to the previous sonic explorations on 2012's A Shadowplay For Yesterdays. We also hear the band utilizing more open space and sound textures in addition to their trademark avant-garde black metal, dipping into the raw sounds of 2010's Opportunistic Thieves of Spring. The lyrics build upon themes of loss, death and inevitability, describing scenes of decay and destruction - magniloquent, abstract, metaphoric, with an abysmal message at it's core. Like the crazed tenant swearing he hears the dead man's heart, Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes writhes upon the floorboards, bashing it's head in and screaming, "let me out".
September 28 street date. The year is 1898. The Gentlemen's Club of A Forest of Stars invites you to a midnight performance of their latest maniacal masterpiece, Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes. This exclusive brotherhood embraces the decadent, conflicting nature of their Victorian England, weaving sickly gin-tinged thoughts with bizarre, hypnotic melodies to fully express the decadence of their era. 120 years later, in the year 2018, A Forest of Stars would be nothing less than one of the UK's leading avant-garde black metal outfits. On Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes, the septet takes William Blake's proverb of Hell "Exuberance is beauty" as it's principle, and celebrates lushness and excess in their music, lyrics and artwork. As an exploration of a struggle against insanity, it also represents the band's desire to revisit earlier works. A more atmospheric album than it's predecessor, 2015's Beware The Sword You Cannot See, this album has nods to the previous sonic explorations on 2012's A Shadowplay For Yesterdays. We also hear the band utilizing more open space and sound textures in addition to their trademark avant-garde black metal, dipping into the raw sounds of 2010's Opportunistic Thieves of Spring. The lyrics build upon themes of loss, death and inevitability, describing scenes of decay and destruction - magniloquent, abstract, metaphoric, with an abysmal message at it's core. Like the crazed tenant swearing he hears the dead man's heart, Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes writhes upon the floorboards, bashing it's head in and screaming, "let me out".
October 5 street date. Double yellow vinyl LP pressing housed in gatefold jacket. A Shadowplay For Yesterdays is the third album by A Forest of Stars. After last year's new editions of The Corpse Of Rebirth (2008) and Opportunistic Thieves Of Spring (2010), this record is the real Lupus Lounge / Prophecy Productions debut by the group. While their first two albums hinted at the huge potential of the collective, A Shadowplay... is aspiring for even greater things, surpassing itself in the process. As for the lyrics, this is another concept album, dealing with a man at odds with himself, torn between virtue and the path of blasphemous (self-) destruction. In terms of music, the Gentlemen's Club enters new realms. The eccentric and sinister compositions that are the trademark of A Forest of Stars are still the music's foundation, but at the same time, they lace their avant-garde black metal with influences from the rich musical heritage of Great Britain: epic doom riffs find their place alongside the melodics and playfulness of classic prog rock. As the highlight of it all, the Gentlemen's Club performs an alchemical miracle: despite it's musical diversity and complexity, A Shadowplay... is the band's most accessible and catchy album by far. Thus, A Forest of Stars do everything properly on A Shadowplay... Skillfully, they unite the trademarks of the past with new ideas for the future, and in doing so, they present the most important album of their discography to date. May the shadowplay commence!
October 5 street date. Double red vinyl LP pressing housed in gatefold jacket. Whereas A Shadowplay... depicted moral decay based on an individual fate, Beware The Sword... transfers the topics of demise and insanity into metaphysical spheres. Accordingly, the sound alchemists' music becomes more universal. The effect of A Forest of Stars' album is similar to what the first mechanical reproductions of music at the end of the 19th century achieved: The aural experience leaves the audience equally stumped and euphoric. Be it the compelling nine minutes of opener "Drawing Down The Rain" (which is accompanied by an animated music video that considerably dwarfs even the impressive clip for "Gatherer Of The Pure"), the sprawling "Virtus Sola Invicta", which comes close to Scandinavian progressive rock's finest moments due to it's folkloristic-acoustic interludes, or the sexpartite "Pawn On The Universal Chessboard", which sums up and transcends the group's contextual essence - "Beware The Sword You Cannot See" both maintains tradition and innovates, elaborating on an unmistakable style in the light of a complex yet still approachable concept... and eventually a new yardstick for other purveyors of allegedly visionary, extreme Metal to be measured by.
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