Carpathian Forest - Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods (1995)^{Release ID: 8418}

The debut EP from a Norwegian BM crew who, I think it is fair to say, never really lived up to their early promise. At this point in their existence Carpathian Forest were a duo comprising Nattefrost on vocals, guitar and keyboards and Nordavind on guitar and keyboards, with session musicians providing the rhythm section of bass and drums. The five tracks here were recorded in '93 and '94, three of them are punky, lo-fi black metal of a style familiar to any fan of early 90s black metal. The first of the remaining two tracks sits at the midpoint of the EP and is titled The Eclipse / The Raven which is a quite reflective, acoustic guitar-led piece with restrained synths and a croaking, whispered vocal from Nattefrost that is actually very effective. The other anomalous track is the closer and longest track on the EP, Journey Through the Cold Moors of Svarttjern, which is a viking-like folky acoustic piece, again with subtle keyboards and Nattefrost's shrieking vocals recorded as if heard from a great distance in the ice-laden, northern woodlands. Both of these tracks make this an interesting release in CF's catalogue as it is an aspect they didn't really explore further going forward, sticking more to the formula laid down by the other three tracks here. This is a great pity, because I think both of these tracks are effective in execution and provide a nice contrast to the punky, crusty sound of their more usual black metal fare and could have been well-suited as counterpoints in their later full-lengths.

Unfortunately Carpathian Forest never reached these heights again, mainly because they didn't sound like they took it all seriously enough. Their crusty, thrashy, punky version of black metal, their lack of urgency in getting material issued and their attempt to inject a degree of humour into their music all fell a bit flat after this and although I do enjoy some of their later output, it feels to me that after the strength of this initial release they have become Norwegian black metal's great underachievers.