Forefather "Steadfast" CD

Descripción As per the band's and label's wishes, no new artwork, no remastering, no bonus tracks.
Forefather have been around for a while, but their early work was bedevilled by low production quality that sometimes overshadowed the brothers' talent. Steadfast is their first album to sound absolutely terrific, and the more polished production really lets the band shine.
The sound is simply so much fuller: there's the far more prominent drumming (by session musician Wolfhead), utilising blast beats to create powerful soundscapes based on black metal. There's Wulfstan's more aggressive harsh vocals that alternate perfectly with cleanly sung choruses, and Forefather's proved knack for writing great hooks shows no sign of letting up.
For my money, the album's single best track is 'Three Great Ships', an absolute earworm, but 'Brunanburh', featuring an excellent translation of the Old English poem as well as some spoken lines from the original at the end, comes close. Weaker tracks are hard to pick out, although the instrumental 'Eostre' and the somewhat pale 'Mellowing of the Maids' let down what is otherwise pretty much a perfect album.
As with much Viking metal, Forefather embrace an anti-Christian ideology that occasionally flirts with ethnic nationalism (I wonder how comfortable Welsh people would be with the lyrics to 'Three Great Ships'). Those who feel uncomfortable about this should remember that pagan metal is essentially about creating an imagined past - the society Forefather idolise never really existed (and certainly not 'for thousands of years'). It's absolutely a great album, though, one I've listened to over and over.
Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF6FEj_v1t4