Woods of Ypres - Deepest Roots and Darkest Blues

\r\nFirst of all I know that this particular Canadian band has a lot of fans out there but I never heard any of their releases till this promo got its way into my hands. At first I was really curious about what the whole fuzz was about but after a while listening to this album I started to be really wondering on WHY there was any fuzz at all in the first place!!
\r\nThe truth is that they have so many elements incorporated into their music that is hard to put them under a specific tag. Doom metal and a dark atmosphere at times or some black metal injections at others with a very melodic approach but the main sonic vibe in this album is a truly obnoxious mainstream alternative (!!!!) rock mood. And the other bad thing that makes this album even more hardly digestible is its long, long length!!!From where should I begin? Well, let’s start with the vocals which were and the first thing that really put my nerves on a big test! Putting aside the random and less apparent black metal vocals which by the way are quite decent, we are dealing also with a large amount of clean ones that however are irritating, extremely mellow and absolutely monotonous and droning!!!
\r\nAs far as the music now the doom parts are totally uninspired, the folky acoustic moments most of the time are boring while the black metal influences are nothing more than some generally indifferent tremolo picking guitar parts with some blast beats to justify the aggressive tendency but that doesn’t mean anything special in the end. Another thing also is the fact that there are no solos or leads here! And finally there is as I said before the moments when the music gets into a genuinely modern mainstream rock output that is really so far away from what we call metal music to the point when it could only but destroy any possible good impression that someone could have about this album. Or at least any good impression I could have about this effort.
\r\nHowever if you like this kind of adventuresome musical approach Ulver is a great band or you could more easily try out Opeth’s albums or Agalloch’s for that matter. But if you insist on remaining in the underground fields I really don’t know how anyone could label this music as an underground achievement! Of course all this is strictly my poor opinion and you are free to make your own judgment on this. The only thing I could say to you is simply Good Luck!!\r\n

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\r\nVaso Prassa \r\n

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