With:	Niclas Frohagen
Conducted by:	Undercraft
Published:	16.09.2005
Band profile:	Forest Of Shadows
Album info:	Departure

01. Sleeping Death
02. November Dream
03. Bleak Dormition
04. Open Wound
05. Departure
06. Rainroom [Katatonia cover] [bonus]

01. Sleeping Death:

This track initially started in a funeral/acoustic style but I found it too cliché and it just didn't sound as good as I knew it could. So with some influences from trip-hop and electronica I turned it into a rather controversial song which I knew would offend lots of narrow-minded people. I was more than willing to pay that price though. The song is one big crescendo and it should be enjoyed in isolation. Lyrically it speaks about loss and the will to depart for another reality where the lost one is present. I think the music portrays the story pretty well with its struggling monotony that finally bursts into a peacefull ending.

02. November Dream:

Originally this song was written for the '98 demo "the silent cry" but it has evolved quite a lot since then both musically and lyrically. There are some pretty evident influences here from the bands I listened to when the track was written even though I wouldn't consider it a rip-off in any way. It has the typical progressive metal structure with clean acoustics in the middle and bursts of death-metal every here and there after mellow passages. I really like the part after the acoustic break which builds up to the very climax of the song which I find one of the better things I've ever written. The re-arranged version of the song also hints at the fact that I have started listening quite a lot to mellotron- and rhodes-driven progressive rock lately. The lyrics are about the blissful departure for a dreamlike reality where we end up seeking our own self-destruction. A tragedy indeed which we all end up in every now and then.

03. Bleak Dormition:

A song about falling asleep... forever.

04. Open Wound:

The link to the predecessing mCD "where dreams turn to dust" with a passage that is rather similar to the one in "wish". Still, it has some rather unorthodox passages with beats, djembes and samples which gives it a fresh sound. It also has some of the most powerfull breaks in the history of Forest of Shadows which makes it stick out. Just like "November Dream" the song has a pretty mellotron and rhodes oriented sound which makes it sound quite progressive. A very representative song for the time when the album was recorded. The lyrics are rather classical and are about losing your loved one and not being able to deal with the loss. Something that happens to us all every now and then even but fortunatelly doesn't end with suicide in most cases.

05. Departure:

What I consider as the greatest song I've ever written both musically and lyrically and it covers pretty much everything that Forest of Shadows is about. The song is quite thematic and is mostly built around the opening melody. It's a song about desperation and losing hope for the current situation. It's a song about departing for another somewhere, a place that ofcourse doesn't exist which makes the song even more depressive. This is marked musically in the end with a final burst of agony and a hopeless and lifedraining outro.