A FOREST OF STARS — A Shadowplay for Yesterdays (review)

A FOREST OF STARS — A Shadowplay for Yesterdays album cover

Album · 2012 · Avant-garde Metal

4.5/5 · 2012-10-04
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A Shadowplay for Yesterdays is the third album to be released by UK act A Forest of Stars. A Forest of Stars belong at their core to the black metal genre, but as A Shadowplay for Yesterdays proves you can’t just say that the album is simply a black metal album. This is something much more than can really be defined as black metal. It transcends the boundaries of the genre, so much that they are not merely stretched but snapped completely.

As such it is hard to know where to begin to actually describe what A Shadowplay for Yesterdays Actually sounds like. It would be simplest I reckon to just dub the album as ‘A Forest of Stars Metal’ but I think I’d better at least try to go into more detail than that. I’d probably call this in genre terms avant-garde black metal, in that the black metal roots of the sound are still very much a prominent part of the A Forest of Stars sound, but the album also introduces a multitude of other ideas, some of it downright weird and mysterious, in a good way of course, which is made evident right from the word go with the introductory track Directionless Resurrectionist which features spoken word vocals. The album is also partly folk metal, especially in the epic A Prophet for a Pound of Flesh, although the folk used here is also quite psychedelic. It’s probably the second most noticeable thing about the album after black metal. Sections of the music vary between an atmospheric nature and more traditional black metal riffs, with symphonic sections adding in small measure, as well as electronic parts and psychedelic undertones that are topped off with a mix of black metal growling, some of which I’d describe as theatrical, and male and female clean vocals within the band’s air of the upper class of the Victorian era of England. They do not call themselves a Gentleman’s Club lightly it seems.

The music is dressed up beyond the usual metal weapons of choice with instruments like the violin, flute, accordion and piano, which add both the folk and psychedelic tones to the music, and they also use programming to add additional weirdness, which all ties in with the album’s concept. You just never know what the band is going to add to their black metal riffage or even when they’re going to withdraw the metal element entirely, which there are several instances of during A Shadowplay for Yesterdays, and each of them implemented as well as any of the metal parts. Even the use of the sound of some pigs oinking at the start of Gatherer of the Pure comes across as something completely natural to include on an album such as this (and it’s a lot more classy than resorting to pig squealing vocals).

I’m still not sure those descriptions are entirely accurate but A Shadowplay for Yesterdays isn’t an album you can listen to and instantly say what it’s all about. In fact even with several listens under my belt it’s still difficult to be accurate and honestly I wouldn’t want to make the claim that you could be completely accurate to say what this is all about, unless you are a band member of course. To claim otherwise would even be the height of pretentiousness in my opinion. A Shadowplay for Yesterdays is just so different to anything else I’ve come across before that it’s impossible to digest it in just a few listens and I think that’s what is ultimately what I find so avant-garde about it, although the music itself has little in common with artists like Unexpect or Akphaezya who normally have the avant-garde tag applied to their music.

And I must say it all works out mighty well. If all of the above only managed to confuse you then I’d take that for a guarantee that A Shadowplay for Yesterdays has succeeded in doing what it seems A Forest of Stars set out to do. Regardless of whether you think you understand it or not, it’s been very clear to me right from my first listen to the album that I was dealing with something really special here and as I’ve given the album many more listens than most albums get before finishing off their review in order to try and understand it all a bit better my regard for it has only increased. I have to admit, this was my first experience with the music of A Forest of Stars so maybe this sort of thing is the norm for them, but as a newcomer I found myself treated to something unlike anything I’d ever heard before, something that was not only excellent, interesting music, but fresh as well. In a world where many bands sound alike and somehow get hyped up as the current big thing albums like A Shadowplay for Yesterdays that generally do have something new and good to offer are still largely going under the radar. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a damn shame.

9.2/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))