FORLORN WORLD: “UMBRA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 202020
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the debut album by Forlorn World, the side project of Bloodshot Dawn‘s Josh McMorran.)

I’m a rabid fan of Bloodshot Dawn and have been since their self-titled debut.  I own all their releases physically, I still listen to all three of their albums to date at least once a month, and I think in general, in a current era where melodic death metal has really fallen off the map, they have somehow managed to inject some needed life into an otherwise dormant sub-genre of extreme metal that was beloved by many.  Mostly this was done through an elevation of the technicality of riff writing combined with an EXTREME emphasis on guitar virtuosity.  Their formula works, and it’s some of the most consistently compelling metal you can listen to right now.

I was therefore quite intrigued when I learned that Bloodshot Dawn founder and frontman Josh McMorran was using this quarantine time to record a solo album as kind of an aside to Bloodshot Dawn, maybe to just hone his musical chops a bit more or to prepare for the fourth Bloodshot Dawn album, but I was curious nonetheless.  This project, the subject of today’s review, is called Forlorn World, and I mean… it’s pretty fucking good. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORLORN WORLD — “THE SHADOWMANCER”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 172020
 

 

Let’s deal first with the elephant in the room: Forlorn World is the solo project of Josh McMorran, the principle figure behind the enormously successful UK extreme metal band Bloodshot Dawn. That fact alone will form immediate expectations about the music, even though Bloodshot Dawn‘s path has displayed its own twists and turns from album to album, the latest of which was 2018’s Reanimation.

And the connections to Bloodshot Dawn don’t end there — Bloodshot Dawn guitarist Morgan Reid makes a guest appearance on Forlorn World‘s debut album Umbra, and Bloodshot Dawn bassist Giacomo Gastaldi (also Darkend) also handled the bass on Forlorn World‘s debut.

So, why isn’t Umbra a Bloodshot Dawn album? Continue reading »