A Forest of Stars shines once again.
The band consists of Curse (vocals, The Water Witch), John “The Resurrectionist” Bishop (drums, The Water Witch, Arkanar), Titus Lungbutter (bass, Roots Entwined), Katheryne “Queen of the Ghosts” (violin/flute/vocals, The Water Witch, ex-My Dying Bride), TS Kettleburner (guitars, The Water Witch, ex-Electric Mud Generator), William Wight-Barrow (guitars), and The Gentleman (keyboards/percussion, Deus Vermin), the band released their sixth album, Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface, in 2026 via Lupus Lounge.
We step into the unknown with the mysterious sounds of Ascension of the Clowns, the opening track that starts off rather slowly but captivates us quite naturally with its ethereal tones before giving way to distortion and more aggressive elements, particularly the vocals teetering on the edge of despair. As someone unfamiliar with the band, I notice the numerous shifts that come one after another in the rhythm section, multiplying the menacing passages between moments of calm, the last of which leads without warning into Street Level Vertigo, where the vocals resume, at first more subdued but then once again giving way to the panic that overwhelms them. The atmosphere, too, becomes increasingly suffocating before suddenly turning ethereal, allowing itself to be infused with touches of Blackgaze and Prog to welcome Queen of the Ghosts’ vocals, far softer than Curse’s ones, thus casting a veil of gentleness over the track before the man returns to darken the song’s conclusion, leading into Mechanically Separated Logic. Once again, the track begins with avant-garde tones, utilizing them with a complex progression – though, all things considered, fairly standard if I’m to judge by the two previous tracks – and although I’m surprised by the intensity, it remains very pleasant, accompanied by a few more folk-oriented and accessible sounds, but the vocalist returns to punctuate the transition to Roots Circle Usurpers, a much more melancholic yet equally unpredictable track. Vocals and heavy Black roots emerge all at once, letting us move forward alongside them before fading away to make way for a brief wave of gentleness, then returning to assert themselves once more until the end, where the unsettling “I’m not I” gives way to Sway, Draped in Vague and its very minimalist intro, which the singer joins in on. A Symphonic touch draws us in, then calls upon the male voices that cast a shadow over the entire atmosphere, making it mysterious and even quite surprising, starting with the pure prog section that dominates the middle of the track before giving way to violence, which fades out before Not Drinking Water begins, the final composition with an abrupt start, but which this time weaves its progression very naturally between shadow and light, always with that highly theatrical vocalist leading the way until the midpoint of the fifteen minutes, letting the instrumental take over again until the final notes.
I have rarely been as surprised by a band as I have been by A Forest of Stars! While the band knows exactly what it’s doing with Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface, as a listener new to their art, I was sometimes lost, but I always managed to hang on!
75/100
