Hailing from the ancient city of Athens comes the third release from Fortress of the Pearl a uniquly beautiful and atmospheric project with aspects of black metal, dungeon synth, and neoclassical piano and flute passages. The three releases paint rather whimsical pictures with hypnotic guitar riffs and a hazy atmosphere that gets progressively cleaner with each release. This third one, titled The Grove is the latest release and the most different from the previous two.
Right off the bat with this album you’re immediately captured by hazy guitar riffs and mind numbing blast beats with added synths to help create this immersive wall of sound. There’s a touch of ferocity in the performance here, the guitars and drums rarely let up only for brief moments where the piano can come through and build the atmosphere even more. That’s a new addition to this release, as the previous releases sported for a more guitar focus, The Grove ditches those atmospheric guitar moments for flutes, pianos, synths, harpsichords and other instruments to help build that immersiveness even more. Its a unique touch that I don’t see many other acts use so well. The long interludes are well written and don’t get tiresome, and are a nice added change to the relentless onslaught of light yet abrasive guitar riffs and blast beats. While there are vocals on the metal tracks, they’re rather forgettable and are just there to add to the wall of noise, as to be expected but still a decent touch.
The songwriting is rather creative all through out the album. The whole thing building up this guilded fantasy story that seems ripped straight out a fairy tale. With the longer tracks, being the metal tracks, giving the all around light-hearted album this darker edge to give a sense of danger in this idyllic world the music builds. My favorite track is the last track, titled Walled Garden. Its a solo piano piece that almost feels like a release from the ferocious and rather heavy track before it. It’s upbeat and bright, with repeating melodies that don’t over stay their welcome for too long and are just catchy enough for them not to be boring. A great ending to a rather unique journey of an album.
The sole member behind Fortress of the Pearl, Ayloss, really shows his unique creativity with this album, while personally, I felt the metal parts were rather predictable and lackluster at times, they were still enjoyable and had plenty of memorable moments, but to me the more neoclassical and medieval synth aspects of the album is where it truly shines. I’d be happy if the band goes more in that direction, but I am still interested either way to see where the story continues with this band. Worth checking out if you’re a fan of heavily atmospheric lofi black metal.