FORGOTTEN TOMB‘s second full-length album, “Springtime Depression,” was released exactly one year after “Songs to Leave,” on August 4th, 2003, via Adipocere Records. There is a strong connection between these two albums, and, as a matter of fact, both are still considered nowadays as the most representative of the band’s early years. Besides being groundbreaking opuses for different reasons, they hold a special place in the band’s history. The band’s ability to blend aggressiveness and slow paces, along with a unique approach to vocals – Herr Morbid‘s harsh screams are, on this album, more mature and complex, just like the songwriting – made “Springtime Depression” a must-have in terms of albums that had a meaningful impact on the subgenre eventually labeled as “depressive suicidal black metal” (DSBM). It is worth mentioning that back then, FORGOTTEN TOMB was still a one-man band, but on this album, the role of drummer was given to Wedebrand (known from the Swedish depressive black metal band SHINING). Any other role was covered by Herr Morbid himself and engineering, mixing, and recording was Tommy Tägtgren’s job. The opus was recorded in January 2003, at Abyss studio in Sweden, in a very isolated area, and I feel like this detail has had an influence on the outcome.
The first thing that comes to my mind is, again, that following up “Songs to Leave” was no easy task, but in the end, “Springtime Depression” does have a strong identity on its own, an overall better production, and is in all respect a step forward on many levels. The opening tune “Todestrieb” is a clear reference to the so-called “death drive” in Freudian psychoanalytic theory and gives a pretty accurate idea of what this piece of art is about: it is a full-fledged monument to all those negative feelings we would normally try to avoid and push away, and very explicit descriptions of self-harm do make the lyrics quite disturbing, but also honest to the core. The grim and haunting guitars, along with slow-paced drums, seem to drag the listeners into a parallel dimension where all their fears and nightmares come alive. Clean guitars have a big role in the entire album, as they mark the highest level of tension on each track, giving a further degree of complexity and dynamism as a result, while keeping the tunes heavy, cold, and dark. “Todestrieb” itself is a rich and multilayered tune, whose length (almost 9 minutes) does not affect its straightforwardness, as the combination of music and words does really leave a mark and it is always into place in terms of delivering strong emotions in the right atmosphere.
One of the highlights of the album is the main melody on track two “Scars”: I have already written about how talented HM is in building effective melodies and riffs, whose undisputed beauty stands also in their catchiness (and let me tell you: this is a proof of how many different shapes an explicit devotion to BLACK SABBATH can take). The song, built on sinister and melancholic arpeggios, talks about the attempt to deal with memories and nostalgia, and “an endless sea of sadness” is all that remains.
The third track, “Daylight Obsession,” shows a quite different approach, as it is likely to be considered to all intents and purposes a black metal tune: it is a very descriptive 7-minute-long merciless journey through the unbearable heat of a summer day (and if you happen to be familiar with hot summers in the area where HM comes from, you would for sure have a deeper understanding of what he is talking about), as unconventional as it can be, in an era when black metal songs were mostly about winter landscapes and their consequences.
The instrumental title track is an utterly melancholic tune where clean guitars are worth a thousand words: listening to it feels like one of those spring days when the sky turns grey and all of a sudden a storm is approaching as if winter was never really gone. The tune is the shortest one on the album, but still nowadays, twenty years later, it is one of the classiest songs the band has ever written, as further proof that you do not even need words when your message is crystal clear.
The second-to-last tune “Colourless Despondency,” despite its title, is very rich and flavorful in terms of composition, and its eerie vibe, along with a dark and doomish atmosphere, makes it one of the most interesting chapters in FORGOTTEN TOMB’s catalogue. The closing tune “Subway Apathy” is likely to be labeled as an all-time classic by now, thanks to its obsessive and catchy clean guitar intro and its haunting general mood, given as a result of a spine-chilling rhythm section and guitar work, combined with HM’s chant telling us about a desolated urban scenario that totally reflects an inner sense of emptiness. “Lifeless as your jaded eyes” is the mantra that closes this opus: the repetition of this verse gives no chance.
So, that’s it: 46 minutes of grim, dark, cold desperation, infused with raw elegance, which may sound like a paradox, but it is indeed, even twenty years later, still a quite accurate way to describe FORGOTTEN TOMB’s sound on this fundamental album. On a side note, I would like to mention a bonus track that got eventually included in a repress of the album released in 2011, but was originally in a compilation called “Tormenting Legends part I”: “Desolated Funeral” is a full-fledged funeral doom tune that was recorded during the same sessions as “Springtime Depression,” but did not really fit in the album on stylistic grounds. The singing style is slightly different if compared to the other tunes – harsher and even more desperate, and the outcome is indeed an intense and heart-wrenching song that proves, once again, the band’s versatility and expertise, as there is no single shade of discomfort that HM did not explore and turned into stunning masterpieces.
Written by Licia Mapelli
Tracklist
- Todestrieb
- Scars
- Daylight Obsession
- Springtime Depression
- Colourless Despondency
- Subway Apathy
Lineup
Herr Morbid – guitars, vocals, bass, effects, songwriting, lyrics
Wedebrand – drums
Label
Adipocere Records
