Band:	Forest Of Shadows
Album:	Where Dreams Turn To Dust
Style:	Atmospheric doom metal, Death doom metal
Release date:	2001
A review by:	KwonVerge

01. Eternal Autumn
02. Wish
03. Of Sorrow Blue
04. Under The Dying Sun [2009 re-release bonus]
05. The Silent Cry [2009 re-release bonus]

Forest Of Shadows? When I first listened to their EP "Where Dreams Turn To Dust" I remained speechless, I couldn't utter a single word or make a sound. The emotions that had overran me while listening to this brilliant 3-track EP where so many, so intense, so bleak, so heart-rending that I remained there where I was sitting lost in my own world of bitterness and pain. Forest Of Shadows' melodic doom/death metal is filled with intense emotions evoking a grey atmosphere as if you were lost in "a forest of shadows" mourning your beloved one or even mourning your very own self welcoming "eternal autumn" to your life.

Through Forest of Shadows' music you can notice here and there some Katatonia influences whereas the clear melancholic voice of Niclas brings forth memories of Garm's (Ulver) chanting voice on their "Bergtatt"-"Kveldssanger" period. Forest of Shadows have their influences, as every band, yet they do not copy them and what they are doing is to harmonize in a unique way their influences with their personal ideas and emotions composing songs that will keep you chained in solitude drowned in their melodic doom/death metal.

"Oh autumn hath arrived?"

"Eternal Autumn" echos and you start losing yourself there "where dreams turn to dust" with the nostalgic sound of the flute surrounding you. The melodic doomy guitar riffing makes you shiver with its emotional charge as Niclas' grunts surpass you like a wind carrying cries of pain and anger whereas the acoustic moments with acoustic guitar chords and Niclas' enchanting sorrowful voice drown you deeper and deeper in a sea filled with oblivious tears. The musical background is the ideal for such poetic lyrics telling about the loss of your beloved welcoming the "eternal autumn" in your life interpreted on the most descriptive way by Niclas Frohagen.

"Awakened this dying season" grunts Niclas accompanied by the mournful guitar riffing as the following "Wish" begins. The guitar work is deeply inspired evoking a bleak atmosphere in the air accompanying Niclas' desperate grunts and heart-rending chanting voice singing lyrics of utter emotional bitterness, longing/wishing for someone to love and finally embracing the eternal sleep, the release of all of all the pain and sorrow "in this oh so dolorous life." "Of Sorrow Blue" leads the album slowly to its end. Everything consisting of this composition makes it a doleful opus; the mourning guitar riffing, the bleeding guitar chords, the wailing violin melodies that make you shiver whenever they enter the song, the imposing rhythm section and Niclas' utterly descriptive grunting voice and chants evoke the ideal grey autumn atmosphere, raging at times, wailing at others, for you to drown in a world of everlasting solitude and pain.

If you found it somewhere and didn't buy it you should kill yourself?

"A life of shattered dreams I can no longer bear
I enter thee eternal sleep?"