Cutting to the quick, Forever Black is great! The traversers of the Spider's Pass are absolutely vital here, as they should! They've had almost thirty years to write and record this album and it shows! The whole band sounds like they've spent the intervening eon between this record and 1991's Paradise Lost, half in hell and half single-handedly defending a lost kingdom and feasting on dragon meat. The time-sharing is probably attributable to the fact that Satan himself couldn't handle a full decade in the company of Cirith Ungol. In fact, I'm sure that red-assed rat would need to see a specialist about a traumatic stress disorder after a single scathing encounter with the likes of these gallant bastards. Vocalist Tim Backer sounds like an eagle gifted with the powers of human speech, swooping in for the kill with a howling hungry cry. Guitarists Greg Lindstrom and Jimmy Barraza take point on either flank of the group's thunderous assault, gutting hordes of mad goblin worriers with the pristine edges of their mighty axes. The echo of each swing parting the sky and the landing of each blow scaring the earth for miles. Bassist Jarvis Leatherby and drummer Robert Garven do their part by combining their groove like incantations to form an Ouroboros like circle of protection around their compatriates. It's a glorious thing to behold!
Despite the epic reach of Forever Black, it is an incredibly raw sounding for a power metal album, and the production is more akin to a Venom record than anything Cirith Ungol has previously released. This fact honestly makes the entire listening experience all the more appreciable as it gives you a sense of the grit and filth that the band's footing digs into as they mount their attack on your senses. Take for example the evil-incarnate rallying cry "Legions Arise" which rushes in like an invading army on horseback, spears at the ready, murder in their eyes as they advance with the feral energy of Anticimex and the skilled discipline of Sodom, a deathly combination only to be crossed by the foolish or suicidal. This war cry is followed by the frigid litch blues of "The Frost Monstreme," an ice-swamp march led by a murky groove and flair like arching solos that would make Deep Purple burst into flames of envy. "Stormbringer" is a macabre doom metal centerpiece that lights a summoning blaze in the name of Pagan Altar and the many long-suffering souls of metals gloomier realms. "Fractus Promissum" congers a funky, groove metal infused miasma that flows like mist off the bubbling bath of a witch's cauldron to spread a pestilence upon your body that will follow you into the next life. The entire hex laden nightmare concludes with the title track "Forever Black" a belligerent slab of truculent proto-thrash in the vein of the doomy Witchfinder General, relentlessly prosecuting a new and deserving recipient of its strange, twisted sense of justice. In the year of the plague, there can be no other champions, for none are as wicked or resourceful as Cirith Ungol.
Grab a copy of Forever Black from Metal Blade here.
