Location: Kópavogur
Country: Iceland
Genre: Black metal
Full length: Brenndar Rústir & Fuðrandi Fjörur
Format: Digipak CD, LP
(see Bandcamp link for more information)
Label: Vesperian, Metal Blade
Release date: June 26, 2026
Forsmán’s debut full-length album, following their 2021 debut EP "Dönsum í logans ljóma," is deeply rooted in Icelandic black metal’s inspirational spirit of the last ten years. "Brenndar Rústir & Fuðrandi Fjörur" radiates uncommon synergy of complex songwriting and driven musicianship, driven by a resolute purpose that can freeze your spine and cast extreme disquietude into your psyche. The inexhaustible animation impart mingles rawness with sophistication, combustible dexterity with cold dissonance, maturity with atavism toward a primal state, yielding an uneasy harmony between flame and frost fittingly characterized by Paolo Girardi’s cover art.
Forsmán continues to draw from the occultic mystique inherent in Nordic black metal. It doesn’t take long after you start listening to realize the band approaches their vision, and their contributions to Norse black metal, with reverence and seriousness. From their EP to this album, their goal to be heard outside their home country is clear. Their ambition for worldwide recognition is evident, their strategy rooted in carving their distinct identity within the minds of listeners and affirming their dedication to Icelandic metal as it has been changing for the times and resurrecting ancient spirits since the 2010s and earlier.
From what I’ve been reading about Icelandic bands, a lot of them liken Norse mythology and Satanism with chaos, chaos magic and transcendence in one form or another. This is likely a means to channel their ceremonial explorations of dense, severe intricacy into the public consciousness across the globe. The lyrical content and the music it’s set to reeks of an ability to instill fundamental mortal terror into genre fans, and Forsmán take this to dynamic levels surpassing bands that make impressions on blast and tremolo picking alone. Besides existing in an enigmatic state and coming across downright scary, this album is also musically innovative.
Bands from Iceland I heard about; Misþyrming, Sinmara, Svartidauði and Auðn; I hear are shrouded in mystery, for all the impressions they’ve made on black metal. The mystery surrounding those bands also obscures the conceptual themes of "Brenndar Rústir & Fuðrandi Fjörur." This ambiguousness helps conceive a kinesthesia of precarious uncertainty, making you feel you’re on the precipice of a void as unfathomable and turbulent as the tracks here. If you go over, is it really by your own free will or is there no choice? As Nicholas St. John stated when writing “The Addiction”. “There’s a difference between jumping and being pushed.”
The note and chord arrangements blasting through the hefty production are executed with preparation, patience and professionalism carrying the band’s passion to overpoweringly radical extremes. There are moments when some sections of the tracks recall Mayhem and Voivod; recollections I often get from bands that maximize the quality of their musicianship. Still, Forsmán takes their material in directions not explored by Norwegian, Swedish or British bands. They unearth a contained universe arising from the natural environment and cultural history of their country, revealing just enough to let you know how much wickedness is brewing.
Since there is impenetrability between the listener and their lyrics and concept, Forsmán furnish their complex musicianship with a visual attitude. This approach conveys a sense of mass devastation and disorder, taken to feverish fury and havoc. Uninhibuted and hot-blooded, it implies great chaos but each instrument and the vocals, alternating between rough and manic, communicate a unity that does a fine job establishing a unity between violence, momentum and complexity. Applying this technique to the album, the band make it relatable to fans of extreme music anywhere, without diminishing the tumultuous malice they seek to impress upon you. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
V.: Bass, vocals
H.: Guitar
O.: Guitar, vocals
M.: Drums
Track list:
1. Drottinn fyrirgefur allt
2. Svartir svanir
3. Andvana
4. Valdnidsla
5. Kynjamyndir
6. Lof mér líf þitt að taka
7. Hrae hins almattuga
8. Barmafylltar fjoldagrafir
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