Reviews: Sombres Forets – La Mort du Soleil

Sombres Forets

La Mort du Soleil

Sepulchral Productions

Street: 07.09

Sombres Forets = Summoning + Alcest

Great black metal is a balancing act between atmosphere and brutality. This one-man effort from Quebec proves that it has the ability to deliver on both. However, the choices made on La Mort du Soleil tend to weigh too heavily on the atmospheric side. While this album will occasionally tease the listener with a brief snippet of brutality, a full-on assault of heavy darkness is never quite attained, leaving this metal enthusiast with a case of the blue balls. Tracks such as “Des Epaves” and “La Disparition” afford us relatively small moments of powerful riffs and blood-chilling shrieks—however, they’re couched in longwinded segments dominated by piano and acoustic guitar. When Sombres Forets decides to get brutal, it’s absolutely rewarding. But it’s not enough to balance out the ambient side of this record, which is too much and sounds like a Pure Moods CD for goth kids. –Gregory Gerulat