Avant-gardists, A Forest of Stars, were a regular fixture in the underground English metal scene between 2008 and 2018. Then, they went into hibernation. Now in partnership with legendary German label, Prophecy Productions, the West Yorkshire natives are ready to bedazzle us after scrapping an entire album in the last few years in chase of perfection. Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface is their sixth full-length recording. Are you ready for one hour and thirteen minutes of performance poetry set to a prog metal soundtrack?
You might wonder if you’re in for a dose of sorrowful West Yorkshire doom à la My Dying Bride when the opening chords of ‘Ascension of the Clowns’ linger in distortion (note: violinist, Katie Stone, used to be a member of MDB). The screeching violins second this observation, and the slow drum beat confirms it. Yet you can already hear the differences before the blast beats kick in at the two-minute mark. A bass guitar charts its course away from the swirling tremolo patterns of the two axemen. The vocals are more like a soliloquy from a man in the manic grip of psychosis, his words laced with intriguing wordplay. “Leave yourself notes. To find your way home. Old man chicken hands. Jitterbugging in the Nightmare Palace whilst the bombs fall. Bury yourself where no one shall ever find you.” It reads like the narrative of a protagonist battling dementia and depression.
‘Street Level Vertigo’ is just as unhinged. The hyper colloquial English lyrics bubble with an anxiety that threatens to break out into ferocity. Tom drums lead the rotating beat as deep choral vocals hide in the background. Guitar intervals move in and out of melody and discordance. Violin bows ache like exhausted limbs in need of repair. Imagine a West End performance about the closure of the Yorkshire coal pits with a cast of top-rank actors. Only when the celestial guitar solos harmonise with violins do you remember that this is a metal song. By contrast, ‘Mechanically Separated Logic’ describes the banality of wasting your life at service station urinals as you go from A to B in the drudgery of your daily work. Here, they cram so many stanzas into the first two minutes to make you wonder how the remaining eight minutes will play out. The answer is through an abrupt transition from pretty arpeggios to an abyss of distorted chords. This helps them sketch out their blackened post-rock interpretation of Pink Floyd with laddering bass patterns and strident violins on top. Nothing sounds like this in contemporary rock or metal.
The delicate folk guitars and day-dreaming string bends of ‘Roots Circle Usurpers’ are easier to absorb with your eyebrows back to their usual position. The warmth of all string instruments here is remarkable before the band launch into a distorted chord-strum and 4/4 drum groove at 03:10. It appears to venerate the power of mother nature when she decides to make humanity extinct. “Best just to show your hand of spades against the earth. After all, she’s used to it. She’ll cast us off like the spent shells we are / Not even the staunchest hermits will be safe once the coat shakes.” Spasms of tuneless guitar rhythms and blast beats punctuate the soliloquy like a technical disruption to the stage set. It’s deliberate, and it’s effective. After all, this is a band that have reserves of melody waiting to be unleashed. Hark how Katie Stone stitches her words together in a sensitive voice for the opening verses of ‘Sway, Draped in Vague’ as the clean guitars and drums provide the sustenance. Dan Eyre takes over like the firebrand union official rousing his comrades into action. The power chords follow him. It ought to be over at seven minutes, but they stretch this song to seventeen and hold the listener’s attention with admirable determination.
The group dedicate closing track, ‘Not Drinking Water’, to a young man called Ben Hanson, who committed suicide in 2001 after strapping a bag of heavy stones to his back and stepping into a reservoir at Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire. It’s solemn and respectful and anguished enough to leave an ache in your shoulders. The violins navigate the way for much of the remembrance. Choral singing is pertinent here, and even the dramatic drum rolls know their place. None of us are innocuous. Or maybe all of us are in the grand scheme of things. A Forest of Stars are qualified to ruminate on this tragedy, and they do a magnificent job of it.
Kirk Houghton
Verdict
Release Date: 08/05/2026
Record Label: Prophecy Productions
Standout tracks: Street Level Vertigo; Roots Circle Usurpers
Suggested Further Listening: My Dying Bride – The Barghest o’Whitby EP (2011), Gévaudan – Umbra (2023), Bedsore – Dreaming the Strife for Love (2024)