FOREST GRAVE: “Through Thickets and Trodden Paths”

The ever-consistent Nox behind Forest Grave (among other low-profile acts of the underground) hasn’t rested much since the first FG tape in 2008. While the discography is huge, the listener base is less so; but I do need to raise a hat for the endurance of keeping releasing short runs of his material for the specific audience. Through Thickets and Trodden Paths is chronologically the tape number god-knows-what, and I bet I’ve seen all the five words of the title appearing on previous tapes, and the riffs aren’t anything new either really, but in some perverse way it’s always such a joy to uncork a new Forest Grave tape. You kind of know what you’re going to get, but it’s never going to disappoint or even bore me either, it seems, as years roll by… 

Through Thickets and Trodden Paths presents the harsh metal side of the project (for those who aren’t familiar, there are some occasional acoustic releases). Two long and crude songs that wander mostly in mid-tempo, drums beating simple patterns and guitars firing constant tremolo (with some slower breakdown sections), the characteristic Forest Grave combo. Whereas the songs don’t compositionally present anything revolutionary and the playing isnt’t the world’s tightest, the feeling and the atmosphere – the most important elements – are always there, haunting, evoking pictures of raw nature, as raw as the rehearsal-like music here recorded on four analog tracks. Comparing this to some previous releases, I don’t find this quite as captivating as some of my old favourities, like Change & Renewal or Where the Land Is Silent, but if you are one of us few who don’t mind Forest Grave’s unoriginality from a release to another, there is absolutely no reason why you would not acquire this tape.

3.5 / 5