Album review: Forlorn – Aether

Forlorn understand the true nature of rituals: that creating a new form demands sacrificing the old, preferably with some dramatic flair. That much is clear in the first furious minutes of Aether, on the track Creatress, as the London quintet pay a blackened metal tribute to a fearsome earth mother: ‘Creatress of death, mother of life.’ That uncanny, transformative energy is present everywhere across this bold debut of forward-looking metal.

Conceptually, Aether weaves together songs centred on the four classical elements, of earth, air, fire and water, yet it also acts as a path for Forlorn to demonstrate their own alchemy of metalcore brutality, intelligent prog riffing and eerie post-rock. Keeper Of The Well is an eco-parable that warns of a heavy price for man’s mistreatment of the oceans, which builds from gentle atmospheric guitars and Megan Jenkins’ siren croon into a torrent of calamitous drum blasts and a doomed choir.

Short interludes dial up the folk-horror strangeness glimpsed in their music videos. Mother Of Moons is a summoning ritual of chanting and drums, while Matrum Noctem’s vocal loops degrade and distort to haunting effect. Everywhere, a terrible revelation seems imminent. The purifying fire of Funeral Pyre unfolds like The Wicker Man in miniature, telling of an unwitting sacrifice against a soundtrack of needling guitars, smouldering bass grooves and Megan’s unholy roars. Flesh to touch, flesh to burn, indeed.

It is on album closer, Spirit, where all of these elements combine to explosive effect. Grisly metalcore beatdowns collide with towering riffs, lifting Megan’s chorus, ‘all around us connected to all above and below,’ to anthemic heights. With songs heavier and stranger than the standing stones that adorn Aether’s cover, Forlorn transform from hopefuls in the wake of Ithaca into a promising metal force in their own right.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Spiritbox, Cult Of Luna, Ithaca

Aether is released on March 28 via Church Road