The Forsaken
“Arts of Desolation”
(Century Media)
This is an excellent technically efficient death metal album with high marks for production values and cover art. The guitars perform a dual blistering “stereo-phonic” attack, which is greatly appreciated in this age of standardized mono. It’s also nice to see a death metal band in 2002 releasing their album on CD (compact disc) after this long wave of eight-track releases. Finally, the record companies have wised up. Eight tracks simply are not the appropriate format for death metal. That kind of shit might fly for Brittany Spears’ fans, but who wants to be smack dab in the middle of rocking out to Deicide’s first album and half way through “Carnage in the Temple of the Damned” the song stops, one hears the chunk of the reel switching tracks and then the song resumes? This album by the Forsaken is bound to start a new trend in the way music is recorded and distributed in the new millennium. I hope other labels catch on to (Century Media’s) paradigm shifting innovation.
