No artist credited
Style: Progressive Metal, Alternative Metal, Metalcore, Doom Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oathbreaker, Svalbard, Dawn of Ouroboros
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 28 March 2025
One of my favorite current filmmakers is Robert Eggers. Across his four feature-length films (The VVitch, The Lighthouse, The Northman, and Nosferatu), he has deployed a sophisticated form of Gothic and Folk Horror drenched in bleak atmospheres and rigid historical framing, anointed in a blood-and-earth occultism pulled from mankind’s deepest, and darkest, spiritual roots. From this, he often conjures a visceral, powerful femininity at odds with patriarchal society’s desired—that is, demure—version. His witches are beguiling and primal, disposing of glamor for red-teethed hexcraft; mermaids tap into some mythic power to unmake man’s sanity; a would-be victim marks her captor with her own blood in violent defiance; a woman possessed of a spirit so emotionally resonant she can commune with forces across the cosmic gulf—and, so happens to be the only one capable of saving the very world which decried her gifts as hysterics.
Similarly, southern UK act Forlorn emerge as if from mist-choked fens to besiege our woefully ignorant “civilization” with vivid remembrances of Earth’s oldest nights. Inspired by horror cinema and headed by actual witch, Megan Jenkins, (in turn backed by her warlockian brothers-in-steel, Edd Kerton and Eathan White-Aldworth (guitars), James Tunstall (bass), and Jay Swinstead (drums)), Forlorn play a vicious blend of progressive metalcore and hardcore they’ve dubbed “folk horror.” Aether marks their debut full-length, following EP Sael in 2023 and a scattering of singles. Convinced by early releases like “Redeem, Release” and “Forsaken,” I was eager to sup of this witch’s brew.
Opener “Mother of Moon” establishes the album’s folk horror aspirations immediately with a summoner’s circle-worth of chanting and thundering buildup before fading into a smoky haze of silence. “Creatress” emerges from the silver-limned primordium like a seething nightmare, claws raking the bonfire-lit night with jagged riffage, cloven feet beating against the soil in a wash of energetic kit work as she howls her melancholy to the distant stars. The song is equal parts vicious and ethereal, with Jenkins’ plaintive cleans counterpointing her roiling growls. Razored chugs and tribal drumming give way to a brief black metal-flavored run of blast beats and rising tremolos, the bass burbling beneath like a promise sealed in blood.
This juxtaposition of haunting beauty and grinding, violent metalcore chaos is sown deep within Aether’s structure, yet no song feels derivative of its neighbor. “The Wailing” has a bounce and groove separate from “Creatress,” with Jenkins closing out on a moody invocation bringing to mind the hexen oeuvre of Gospel of the Witches’ Salem’s Wounds (2015). There’s something of Iridescent-era Silent Planet living in the throaty chugs comprising the main guitar line of “Funeral Pyre.” Jenkins channels the violent yet purifying nature of fire as she screams “I’ll see you all in Hell,” and pulls out some truly bestial lows for the song’s ending. “Keeper of the Well” carries whiffs of gothic doom amidst the grinding guitars, while closer “Spirit” completes this moonlit ritual with breathy gusto and visceral proclamation, promising “When the world splits open, I will be here” before intertwining with the aether of the natural world amidst punctuating guitars like ritual knives piercing flesh.
If I’ve any rune-carved bone to pick with Aether, I would point this particular rib at the “filler” tracks. At a lean 26 minutes and with only eight total offerings, sacrificing three to the altar of intro/interludes feels a tad wasteful. However, it’s hard to deny that, aside from “Mother of Moon,” both “Matrum Noctem” and “Veiled One” flow smoothly along the album’s leylines, to the point where I consistently forgot they were individual tracks and not extensions of their predecessors. I’m not usually one to demand more from a record, but in Aether’s case, I can’t help but crave more of this wicked mana surging through my ears.
Yet, if I’ve learned anything from witch movies, it’s that the longer a spell goes on, the greater chance there is of disaster. Forlorn have opted for quality over quantity. In so doing, they’ve ensured Aether never wanes. This choice encourages repeat listens, affording the participant time and space to really immerse themselves in the details, helped along by a punchy production empowering every element—from the emotive shifts in Jenkins’ voice, to the low-end buzz of Tunstall’s bass, and Swinstead’s tasty fills—to achieve maximum clarity and effect. The only victim here is some of the atmospheric elements, which can feel a bit lost in the fog, but if anything this adds to the fun of Aether’s replayability.
“Feel me in your skin, taste me in each breath,” Jenkins intones on “Spirit.”
Aether is a vessel of musical communion. A dark, beguiling fairy-tale of the Grimm variety, steeped in the primeval power of Nature and her forgotten children. Effortlessly summoning images of blazes in northern skies and deep, ancestral woods. A bridge back to ancient places from before mankind forsook the natural world and walled it away behind the cold, dehumanizing logic of modern civilization. Like Eggers’, Forlorn have crafted a viscerally feminine, occult work in Aether, one that—in a time where our mechanized patriarchal world feels increasingly hostile to the human spirit—offers the kind of comfort that helps music transcend “good” to become something great.
Recommended tracks: Creatress, The Wailing, Funeral Pyre, Keeper of the Well, Spirit
You may also like: Karyn Crisis’ Gospel of the Witches, Ithaca, Predatory Void, Venom Prison
Final verdict: 8.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | RateYourMusic
Label: Church Road Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Forlorn is:
– Megan Jenkins (vocals)
– Edd Kerton (guitars)
– Eathan White-Aldworth (guitars)
– James Tunstall (bass)
– Jay Swinstead (drums)
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