Official Candlelight Records press release:
Forest Stream was founded in 1995 by Sonm (drums, keys, vocals) & Omin (guitars, bass) in a small Russian town called Chernogolovka, 40 km north-east of Moscow. From the very beginning their goal was to create the music that would capture the beauty and magic of existence at the same time showing its triviality, misery, and despair.
The duo worked only together at the beginning, but soon other members started to join and an embryonic full band started to take shape. Silent Anth began to help Forest Stream as bass player, and he quickly became a permanent fixture.
In 1999 this line-up recorded the first demo, "Snowfall". Influenced by the pioneers of the UK doom scene, but complete with a blackened edge, their music expressed deep sorrow and hopelessness of the existence on this pitiable planet.
The second demo, "Last Season Purity" was recorded in 2000 and subsequently uploaded to mp3.com. Thus Forest Stream was introduced to the foreign listeners for the first time.
The year 2002 was marked by serious rearrangements in the line-up: Elhella joined to play drums and Berserk joined as guitar player. Forest Stream also got a record deal for four albums from Elitist records. To get the first album, "Tears of Mortal Solitude", done the band had to withstand quite a number of unpleasant events such as equipment theft, destruction of their rehearsal rooms, and the least expected—Sonm's departure to the Netherlands where he enrolled to a Ph.D. course in physics. Despite all difficulties, the album was still recorded and released at the beginning of 2003 to universal plaudits from press and public alike.
With the release of the full-length album the band got more opportunities to play live and that is when the line-up problems had to be solved. Elhella was shifted to play keys, Kir joined to play drums and T.Moloch was the new bass-man. This coincided with band's morphing towards more aggressive touches in their music due to growing influences of the dark Masters—Emperor; as well as getting more technically advanced following the example of Sweden's Opeth.
Around this time, among various headline concerts throughout Russia and the Ukraine, Forest Stream played a show with Cradle Of Filth and joined Katatonia during their tour in Russia.
Four years passed since the release of their first album. Unfortunately, Elitist records ceased its existence so Forest Stream were looking for a new deal parallel to working on the new material. When Forest Stream were thinking over several offers, Candlelight records suddenly proposed a three-album deal and Forest Stream happily accepted it.
The material for the second album, The Crown of Winter, is shaping up to be something remarkable and truly worth listening to. Mixing duties are to be handled by Brett Caldas-Lima (To-Mera, Kalisia, etc). Taking the symphonic and epic overload of the Norwegian black metal scene and combining it with a seriously emotional core of classic doom, Forest Stream's unique take on the genre is set to explode.
