Forlesen draws from dark ambient, epic doom, black metal and slowcore, to create a dynamic and experimental sound. The quartet are preparing to unveil their black metal cover of Type O Negative’s “Red Water (Christmas Mourning)” on streaming platforms on December 15th.
Vocalist and guitarist Ascalaphus comments:
Type O Negative were foundational for me, serving as my gateway into doom metal and remaining one of my favorite bands since. In a spirit of Saturnian revelry and sincere mournfulness, we offer this cover of the Drab Four’s grimmest of holiday songs, one that emphasizes the duality that made them such a special band – embers hardly alight after the evening’s celebration, a dark chill entering the room, a sense of both grandeur and nostalgia, along with a very sharp sense of loneliness and despair.
In our cover, then, we simply implemented that duality through the black metal prism. A lushness of melody and atmosphere that provides the backdrop to basically any and every Type O Negative song, cut to the core with the brute strength of raw, piercing, unfiltered emotion. In many ways this is Type O Negative’s bombast taken one step further, and their cruelty and hardship perhaps one step further than that.
Type O Negative did a lot of covers and always made it sound like themselves. There’s an irony to the fact that for a band who could make whatever they touched their own, so many other bands now try (and fail) to imitate them or are fairly literal in their interpretation. So paradoxically, I think the best way to honor what made a song of theirs special is to reinterpret it.
God Jul! Io Saturnalia! Ho ho ho…
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Check out our collated seasonal playlist, with all the Spotify-able tracks we’ve featured over the last few years
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