Stellar Forest, self-titled, France, Transcendance Records, EP CD digipak (2025)
Billing as a cosmic atmospheric black metal duo, Stellar Forest put out its self-titled debut EP a week ago and a real doozy it’s turning out to be, to my ears at least. Stellar Forest may be new but members Erroiak (vocals) and Septev (all instruments) come with a lot of experience in black metal, atmospheric black metal and dark ambient, and various combinations of these genres. It’s no surprise then that this EP merges elements of these aforementioned styles into a hybrid blackened techno / ambient synthesis, and moreover one that manages to be savage and hard-hitting, noisy and cold, and at the same time icy-glossy and polished, and trance-inducing, in a way that electronic pop can be. Searing, burning tremolo BM guitars, furious blast-beat percussion and spidery roaring, rasping vocals meet a barrage of glacial dark ambient, minimalist coldwave melody, glitch electronics and breakbeats: the range of influences and inspirations brought by Erroiak and Septev are mind-boggling but across all six tracks of the EP the black metal elements are clearly defined and help to anchor the varieties of non-metal music that pass through.
Tracks are numbered I to VI and can be treated as being mostly instrumental, as Erroiak’s screaming, wailing vocals tend more to be one of various layers of sonic texture in each and every track. At just under 30 minutes, the EP plays as a soundtrack to a futuristic science fiction film just waiting to be made, once the Stellar Forest men give their thumbs up to such a project. The noisy scourging BM guitars and pounding drums may be upfront across most tracks but the synthesisers and electronics fill the spaces behind them, presenting a soundscape made intriguing, mysterious and complex by all the contrasts of its component musics and their interactions between and among one another.
As the EP continues, the music becomes more and more dreamy and trance-inducing, as breakbeats and ambient drones start competing for equal attention with the BM elements, sometimes superseding them altogether (as on track III), and often it seems as if all the angels in Heaven and the demons in Hell have come together in one Almighty rave that ranges over the length and breadth of the known cosmos. While parts of the music can be ugly and savage, and melancholy can be found (especially on track 5), the overall impression is of a sweeping glacial and abstract beauty that can be ethereal and spiritual, and which is not usually malevolent though neither is it completely benign. In all of this, Erroiak and Septev do not forget that melody, riff and proper song composition matter, and all songs feature these structural constituents, even if in unusual ways.
A most singular sound universe of sweeping cold beauty, terrifying and confronting, yet breathtaking in its scope and ambition, beckons to all who might dare enter the Stellar Forest realm.