Maltese doom metal, FORSAKEN released their debut album on this day in 1997.
There was a three-year hiatus prior to "Evermore"'s release, which was mostly taken up by gigging in the Island and even a tour in France and Spain in March 1994 to support the Ep's release. "Evermore" received positive reviews in the metal press world-wide and was also very well received by our fans, though some still yearned for our earlier, and decidedly darker and more epic material. In fact, if I had to criticise anything about that release, it would have to be our shift towards a less intricate direction, and shedding our darker edge. One may argue that some of the territory covered on "Evermore" isn't our natural habitat so to speak. We've always been a more epic oriented doom band and the more basic structures of tracks like "The Healer", "Rubicon" and so forth were not a true reflection of what Forsaken is all about. They were more the result of experimentation with diverse styles rather than really emanating from our musical soul so to speak. As a result, despite some very good tracks like "Seasons End", "Winter Tears", "Sufferance" and "Madrigal", I think "Evermore" is a rather inconsistent release. The production and band performance were also somewhat lacking especially when compared to our recent releases. Moreover, "Evermore" was also not strongly promoted internationally, and as a result it did not reach as many people as it should have. If we had to possibility to go back in time, we would change all these factors, and to be honest, we have tried to ensure that such shortcomings would not be repeated in our other releases.
Albert Bell / Forsaken interview, Forgotten Scroll, 2005