WOODS OF YPRES - WOODS 4: THE GREEN ALBUM - REVIEW

By Calum on Mar 15, 2011 | In News, Reviews | Send feedback »

Forged in the cold desolation of a bitter Canadian winter, Woods Of Ypres have endured in the predominantly  uncharted territory of underground black and doom metal since 2002.  Striking a deal with Earache Records at the end of last year, the Ontario quartet no longer have to worry about their previous distribution problems, and it starts here - with a re-issue of Woods 4: The Green Album, which was only available via digital download before this CD edition.

The words 'guilty pleasure' were battered around relentlessly when this record first aired, and a certain degree of that  is true.  Woods 4: The Green Album is more doom orientated than it's predecessor, and that isn't to say Woods III: The Deepest Roots And The Darkest Blues was not a doom-laden affair.  Importantly for this record, there's the occasional folk interlude, undertones of melodic rock and an atmosphere drizzled with a gothic zest.

I say 'importantly' because it's hard to imagine this record being a success without this diversity, and I will explain  why in due course.  Firstly there's an exciting layer of musical variety to be praised!

Shards Of Love is the beautiful, impacting opener that progresses from a guitar-picked ballad to a slow-paced yet  thunderous entity of dispirited waning.  Along similar lines to this, is the short acoustic track You Are Here With Me (In This Sequence Of Dreams).  Although weighing under two-minutes in length, it shows a very capable folk side to Woods Of Ypres.

If you're more inclined to crave something a whole lot heavier, Natural Technologies is the most blackened song on the album, and there's the brash riffing of Suicide Cargoload (Drag That Weight) to extinguish anyone's burning desire for a song with a brazened sludgy-edge.

Gold has fused what can probably be described as 'depressive' rock into the record too, with dark lyrical content spewing from this love-fatigued soul like he drank ipecac in a confession box.  But as appealing as this may seem, Gold fails to utilise his gloomy content.  Overly-simplistic songwriting gives many of the songs less impact when it comes down to inducing that burdening air of suffocating melancholy that Woods Of Ypres are renowned for.

By The Time You Read This (I Will Already Be Dead) is a main culprit, but Wet Leather is by far the most dubious, with a cringe-worthy chorus clumsily tarnishing any note of musical accolade on the track.  ('Life is just pain and piss, there's nothing that I will miss').

Musically, Gold is moving away from most of his black metal roots with Woods Of Ypres and probably allowing them  to be channeled into his two-songs-a-year project - the Northern Ontario Black Metal Preservation Society.  And there isn't anything wrong with that, especially seems as Woods play doom almost as well as they did for any blackened section in the past.  Even holding them in high regard, ticking the box for ballsy ambition and ignoring some of the lyrical hiccups, Woods III still stands on higher ground than Woods 4.

6/10

Calum Robson

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