“It feels like we’ve been sat on this forever,” says Ryan Heatman of South Wales based four-piece Forrest, expressing his relief to see debut album ‘Soluna’ on the verge of release. “Honestly, we’re so excited for everyone to hear the record and we’re feeling pretty proud of how it came out.”
‘Soluna’, the band’s follow up to the ‘Before You Go’ EP and a split alongside the equally excellent The Winter Passing, sees Forrest explore their emotive side; dominated by enthralling soundscapes and often crushing atmospherics.
“‘Soluna’ is the first time we’ve been able to release a record that we feel is the perfect representation of Forrest, sonically,” Heatman explains. “[It] captures how we have sounded live since our 7″ ‘Before You Go’ came out in 2012. Although I still love that record, there’s so much we wanted to do whilst recording it that we never got to do. I feel that we also began to find our sound while writing our split with The Winter Passing. But we decided to do the split pretty last minute so those songs were written very quickly.”
“I’d love to be able to say that writing this record was a breeze,” Heatman openly admits, speaking of the creative process. “It was a very long process that at times, was some of the most frustrating moments of our musical lives. Most of the songs on ‘Soluna’ were written coming up to three years ago. Originally the record was supposed to be 10 tracks long but we ended up scraping two as we felt they weren’t good enough and didn’t fit.”
“This was the first time we have written 100% as a band,” Heatman continues. “Usually I will write a song, then Mark [Staddon] will write a song, and so on. We found that when we’d head to practice to write something new we’d end up changing or re-writing the ones we already had. And that became very frustrating. Recording was great though. We thoroughly enjoyed playing about with pedals and trying everything we wanted to do on the last two records.”
Forrest are the latest talent the be emerging from an ever-bustling alternative scene in South Wales. Although not directly influencing their sound, (“when we grew up everyone was either in a metal band, or a straight up pop-punk band”), the local communities dedication to live music has proved vital in their career.
With a release show scheduled at the band’s favourite pub; Newport’s Le Pub, Forrest are looking to get back on the road following the album’s release. “We’ve missed touring and there are a lot of people we’re well over due a good catch up with,” Heatman concludes. “We’ve also started writing again. Nothing serious just yet. We’re just not looking to leave it another two years before we release something else.”
‘Soluna’ will be available from the 16th July via Close To Home Records. Pre-order the album via BandCamp now.
For more on Forrest, check out their Facebook page.