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My first exposure to the U.K.'s Old Forest was via the re-recording of their 1999 debut album, Into the Old Forest, released in 2020 and cleverly titled Back Into the Old Forest. Sutwyke, the band's 2023 album, sounds to be in line with what little of their discography I've heard, which is melodic black metal with an epic streak. They employ both clean vocals and blackened rasps, neither of which sound great to me. The rasps are on the screamy side, in a sort of post black metal way, and the clean vocals, which despite being harmonized, are dull. The production is thin, something that works for raw, icy black metal but leaves the melodic stuff Old Forest plays with a dearth of power. There are some interesting things happening on Sutwyke, like the two-part "Witch of Prague" tracks, but nothing that rises above the vocal and production shortcomings. I don't hate this album but it could and should be much better.