Band: Forgotten Tomb
Title: Under Saturn Retrograde
Label: Agonia Records
Distribution: Agonia Records - Bertus
Release date: April 22nd 2011
Review: CD

Forgotten Tomb used to be one of my favourite bands within the so-called Suicidal Black Metal scene. In the early years, this band easily reached the level of fantastic combos like Shining, Mortifera, Craft and this sweetest kind of happy, joyful entities…
Songs To Leave, for example, was / is one of my favourite Black-albums from 2002, in case you might care.
Throughout the years, the musical approach did change (a lot). At this very moment, Forgotten Tomb still perform a somewhat ‘Suicidal Black Metal’-alike style, yet nowadays it gets labelled as ‘Nihilistic Black Rock Unlimited’. Ridiculous! Yet anyhow…
Under Saturn Retrograde combines elements from the early years with the evolved details from the near past, making the totality much more varying and, I have to admit, more open-minded than before. The depressing, self-mutilation-stimulating and suicidal atmosphere from the earliest years is still present, yet not that pronounced anymore in its blackest definition, and indeed the style changed into a mixture of elements from related genres – ‘related’, because the core still is satisfyingly negative. Dark Doom, Death Rock, Sludge and Doom-Death (hello early Paradise Lost!), all this penetrates the specific yet recognizable Necro-Black-oriented core from Old Times, emotionless, merciless and unconventional. This stuff is melodic and catching at the same time, ear-pleasing and mind-torturing at once – jippie or not! It gets closer to, let’s say, Sisters Of Mercy, Moonspell, Paradise Lost and this kind of rockin’ and groovin’ shit, than Shining or Craft – and there’s even a The Stooges-cover (I Wanna Be Your Dog, just great!) -> so: Rock, Metal and Utter Darkness in a blackened format, meant to make the unhappy ones happy again – amusing and not amused at all at the same time…

84/100

Ivan Tibos.