THOTS

"Thots" is the debut full-length studio album by Czech Republic progressive death metal act Forgotten Silence. The album was independently released by the band in July 1996. "Thots" was originally only available in cassette tape format but has since been released on CD too. Forgotten Silence had released a demo cassette tape album in 1994 called "The Nameless Forever...The Last Remembrance" but "Thots" is the first official album release by the band.

The music on the album is progressive death metal. The tempo is mostly kept mid- to slow paced but there are a few faster parts on the album too. The vocals are brutal growls (the odd sounding gurgling growls from the demo are gone) but there is also female singing which is great for the atmosphere and for the variation of the music. The use of keyboards for creating dark atmospheres is also very succesful to my ears. One of the most interesting features on the album is how the songs change between death metal parts and acoustic parts (sometimes with a jazzy touch) though. Sometimes many times within a song and sometimes even within riffs. The rythm section is also pretty exciting when they suddenly start playing what can be characterized fusion type parts. This might sound a bit confusing but the tracks are cohesive and cleverly composed. There are a couple of short atmosperic interludes between the more "regular" and longer tracks which provide the album with a nice flow.

The musicianship is excellent on this album. Great interplay and loads of innovative ideas.

The sound production is probably the weakest link on the album. It´s not bad as such but on the other hand it doesn´t really sound fully professional either. Considering the otherwise great quality of the music I´m able to forgive this minor flaw though.

While "The Nameless Forever...The Last Remembrance" held a lot of promise I wasn´t expecting to be blown away by "Thots", but I honestly think this album is quite fantastic and it fully deserves a 4 star (80%) rating. I find "Thots" highly recommedable to fans of mid- to slow paced progressive, dark and atmospheric death metal.