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Rating: "Through Chasm, Caves And Titan Woods" marks the first chapter of the long but honored career of one of the Norwegian black metal bands that made history. The EP, recorded back in 1995, a year when bands from the second great wave of black metal were emerging, contains 5 tracks for a total length of about 18 minutes and 40 seconds. The debut of Carpathian Forest is nothing short of extraordinary because in their songs they do not only seek aggression, as is usually heard in the early albums of many bands, but rather they try to give an epic tone to their work while keeping it all shrouded in a dark and unhealthy cloud.
The first track with the band's eponymous name, Carpathian Forest begins with that classic black'n'roll style that has always characterized their entire career; melancholic the solo immediately after which choral keyboards alternate with thrashing parts supported by an evil scream... The second track "The Pale Mist Hovers Towards The Nightly Shores" continues the black'n'roll path with a sharp and fast riff that halfway through the song gives way first to a well-thought-out solo and then to a series of tremolo picking solos almost reminiscent of the Slayer style. We then move on to the third track "The Eclipse/The Raven" which stands out for its majestic beauty and originality. Here the composers Natterfrost and Nordavind, inspired by the famous poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, using only an acoustic guitar and keyboard, create one of the album's highest points. After those scarce 4 minutes of rare beauty, we return to the classic Carpathian Forest style in "When Thousand Moons Have Circled" characterized by an original riffing that is especially noticeable at the end and an excellent, albeit modest, use of keyboards that envelop it in an aura of evil. And we've reached the end with, in my opinion, the compositional peak of the album: "Journey Through the Cold Moors of Svarttjern". The guitars (both acoustic and electric) do their duty with a fitting proposal, even if penalized by the poor quality of the recording, the keyboards are sublime and evocative and Nattefrost emits depressive-style howls that make it all more desperate and suffering.
The album is accompanied by a very dark black-and-white cover featuring a landscape of fir trees and in the distance a sort of church.
In short, a must-have album because the sought-after atmospheres contained in this album will never be found again in the band's subsequent full-lengths.
Personal rating: 9
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 The Eclipse / The Raven (03:42)
[Music by Nordavind '91]
Once upon a midnight dreary. while I pondered, weak and weary
over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-....
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one, gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
'Tis some visitor' I muttered, tapping at my chamber door....
Only this and nothing more....
[Fretless Bass solo]
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
and each seperate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow... Vainly I had sought to borrow
from my books surcease of sorrow.... Sorrow for the lost Lenore-...
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-...
Nameless here for evermore...
05 Journey Through the Cold Moors of Svarttjern (05:31)
[Music by Nordavind '91]
Ahh, Dance through the cold shadows of Pan
as tears fall from heaven...
once I had hold the rarest rose,
But, that is now forgotten with time...
Among the tree's I wandered,
To feel the embrace of etemal eclipse
as my candle bums out,
-And we must make the myths...
Dark is the moon at harvest,
the nightly mist approaches
through the forlorned marshes,
-Then darkness has now been achieved...
"Crush your earthly virtnes,
As I stumbled through snow and frost
my feeble heart is longing for the wood,
where all dark cast a shadow...."
It's pale morrow landscape,
Has now risen through the bleak night
over the moors and mountains,
Flies the hunting ravens..., searching,
Dance through the cold shadows of Pan,
As tears fall from heaven,
Then, once I had hold the rarest rose...
Frozen is my pagan heart,
And once again the dawn is here
hear the sound of silence,
In these trees....
Are my gallows....
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