Forsaken Eternity—A Kingdom of Ice (2022)

Details

Recorded at Ethereal Season Productions. Recorded, mixed and mastered from September 2019 to October 2021. Album art by moonring design. Released Friday 8 July 2022 on Rottweiler Records.

For fans of Wintersun, Children of Bodom, Dimmu Borgir, Vesperian Sorrow.

Band

Nathan Mote—Vocals
Vladimore—Guitar and bass
Brian Rush—Keyboards
Jason ‘The Machine’ Borton—Drums

Guest middle guitar solo by Jadran “Conan” Gonzales on Rising Force (track 8).

Tracks

Skywards
A dark divinity
Shadow fortress
Endless light
Forsaken eternity
Sonata concertata in C minor
A kingdom of ice
Rising force (Yngwie Malmsteen cover)

Review

Forsaken Eternity are a hailing from Portland, Oregon (USA). is their debut album.

You’ve got to love promo blurb for forthcoming albums. This is the marketing spiel for A Kingdom of Ice, the debut album from Portland, Oregon symphonic black metal band Forsaken Eternity.

Endlessly desolate, the jagged, frozen contours of the dead world stretch out into the darkness; empty and silent beneath the weak and pallid moon, its lustre fading as the fires of the sun burn down to flickering embers and so much blackened dust. The distant, long extinguished stars look down upon the cold grandeur with their long forgotten, lifeless eyes and chart a world’s last steps into the night. A thousand civilisations, a million loves and a billion tragedies… countless moments of joy and pain, centuries of heartache, hope and faith, all slip like ragged ghosts into eternity, ashes on the wind.
Press release

The promo describes this album as variously ‘glorious’, ‘grandiose’, an ‘overwhelming tumult of sound’ featuring ‘charging rhythms’, ‘swirling keyboards’ and ‘spiralling guitars’. We’re told that ‘breathtaking melodies entwine with cold iron riffs and devastating drumming’.

And all of that is true, it’s just that… symphonic black metal almost always leaves me feeling cold. I can absolutely appreciate the musicianship, the songwriting and arrangement skills, it’s just that in that glorious and gradiose tumult of sound, it often loses its soul, its humanity.

There are some magnificent moments in this album. The spoken part during “Forsaken eternity” (track 5) is atmospheric and chilling (but the same technique sadly gets somewhat lost on the title track, “The kingdom of ice” (track 7) . The classical-sounding “Sonata Concertata in C minor” (track 6) is not only Bach-esque in its ambition, it is also the most beautiful track on the album.

The inclusion of the Yngwie Malmsteen cover, “Rising force” (track 8) is perhaps a further confirmation of why this album didn’t quite touch my heart. Malmsteen is a remarkable and overly capable guitarist, but his music never connected me with. (It’s a good cover, though.)

Conclusion

Despite a few beautiful moments, this kingdom of ice, however, left me feeling quite cold. For those who love their black metal attack with a symphonic flavour, I’m sure you are going to love this release.

Review score: 60%

Video

Disclosure

Imperative PR contacted me inviting me to preview Forsaken Eternity forthcoming album, thank you. I have no connections to either Imperative PR or Forsaken Eternity. I’m not being paid to review this. But I did get a free digital copy of the album to review which is pretty cool. Many thanks to Imperative PR, and to Forsaken Eternity for continuing to create fresh, exciting metal.