Hate Forest

Hate Forest was a Ukrainian black metal band formed by Roman Saenko, the leading member of Drudkh, Dark Ages, and Blood of Kingu. Thurios joined the band in 1998 after the recording of Scythia. The music is mostly very fast, but occasionally slow, with low, distorted vocals, raw low fidelity quality production, programmed drums, and dark ambient elements (some releases have consisted entirely of dark ambient tracks). Musical influences are mostly from Scandinavian black metal to traditional death metal, especially Bolt thrower (Which they have covered their song "Cenotaph"). According to the band, its lyrics are about mythology, mainly Slavic, and inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's stories and Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. The band never gave interviews, never released photos, and held its distance from the black metal scene. After Hate Forest disbanded, Saenko focused on Blood of Kingu, a band similar in style but of different inspiration but had also ceased to exist in 2016. Despite accusations of being a national-socialist black metal band, there is no definitive evidence available to prove the statement, and the band and their record label had previously expressed an aversion to political lyrics, endorsements, or any sort of mention of modern issues prior to their disbandment.