Forgotten Tomb : "Nihilistic Estrangement"

This Italian band's album "We Owe You Nothing" made my top 10 death metal albums of 2017 list. This album is not as straight forward death metal. There is more of a throb than a driving thrash groove. The scathing vocals are more tortured in the hateful snarl, giving them a more black metal feel.  They lyrically I prefer where they are going with "Active Shooter".  Metal lyrics should make you uncomfortable and hit you where it hurts. This is way more real that metaphorical occult poetry that they are only into since it's the metal thing to do. His growl is mean , but you can still make out the words which to me give the subject matter improves the song writing.

Not sure why they are still being called goth anything. Yes there is a touch of that influence on the title track and a low spoken vocal on the first part of "Iris' House", but there is also some pretty bluesy guitar as well. The vocals do not have as much purpose as the do on the opening track. It is very dark. The pulse is creepy/ Not goth, but pretty grim. You can make out the lyrics more on the second part of "Iris' House" , which is a separate track. It reminds me more of  Shining, so I am going to say this is more of a black metal album than it is death metal.  The guitar playing steals the show not only on this song , but the album as a whole. I can hear the bass, which is more than I can say for most black metal bands and what helps give it that heavier death metal stomp.

"Distrust" has more of a street wise gallop to it. It is very metal, but still has some sonic sting to it. As I mentioned before the title track is more melodic and I can hear where some of the inspiration for the melodies layered in there might come from bands like the Cure. But this is not the darkest song on the album by any means.  The last song is more like other black metal I have heard while still holding their sound, the song writing is more dialed in than the other songs on this album. I will give this album a 9 as aside form the less inspired closing track it is really solid and has a great deal of feeling behind it.