Woods Of Ypres is a band name I had heard a lot of about over the past year or so. They were drawing a lot of praise and interest from local Metal heads here in Toronto, Ontario Canada, especially from the Black Metal scene. While there are not a whole lot of our bands that are known in the world wide scene, the Toronto area is home to lot of underappreciated bands and I was anxious to hear Woods Of Ypres. I was expecting raw and violent Black Metal, possibly in the style of another local band called Horde of Worms, but after downloading two songs from their website and immediately placing an order for their CD I got something much different. Woods Of Ypres play Black Metal, yes, but it is a lot more melodic and contains influences from bands like Agalloch and occasionally Opeth. The band coins themselves as Summer Black Metal and the emotion and atmosphere found throughout the CD is a lot “warmer” than typical Black Metal so it’s not a band description. I can honestly say that after playing this CD on a regular basis over the past three weeks I have listened to one of the finest pieces of Metal music released this year.

Considering the fact that every band member except David Gold left during the recording sessions shows how brilliant Gold is as he completed the rest of the CD himself without a hitch in song writing or quality. To further describe the music: if you can picture traditional Black Metal riffs interwoven with acoustic, Agalloch styled breaks of atmosphere you can start to appreciate what the sound of Woods Of Ypres is all about. That’s just the beginning though. Gold provides us with a variety of vocal styles, the most common are an excellent mid-range Black Metal growl that is both intelligent and well thought out and then there are also clean vocals. You can understand almost all the lyrics without the booklet during the harsh sections and they are professionally done. Meanwhile the clean vocals are done in a similar style to what’s found in Agalloch (that name keeps popping up). They’re kind of semi-spoken, somewhat deep, and dark and gloomy. While Gold doesn’t have a huge range he occasionally goes into a higher vocal style that sounds strangely similar to Vintersorg. Any short comings in his range are made up for by excellent use of multiple vocal tracks that are never over used but instead add depth, feeling, and impact when applied to the music. Much like the harsh vocals, the phrasing and pacing is excellent making for some memorable and catchy vocal lines that are a main highlight of this release. The acoustic sections are what might turn off a lot of Black Metal fans but they are a reason why this CD is so successful in its delivery and atmosphere. They do borrow a lot from the acoustic stylings of Opeth and Agalloch but they’re by no means a second rate rip-off. In fact, the acoustic parts (sometimes used at the same time as Black Metal riffs) are almost always as successful in creating their intended atmosphere as those previously mentioned acoustic masters are.

The Black Metal riffs of the band are definitely in the traditional style and contain almost no hints of death or thrash. Sometimes the riff progression of Opeth works its way into the riffs but overall this is definitely Black Metal riffing. Meanwhile the drumming is very non-Black Metal. There is a lot of double bass during the aggressive sections with blasts only showing up every now and then. This makes the music even catchier as the extreme sections on this release are as neck breaking as most Death Metal music is. The song writing is mostly epic as the songs are quite long with multiple mood and atmosphere changes that always make sense in the context of the music. The problem some people have with this release is there are too many acoustic passages, with some songs containing almost exclusively this style with clean vocals. Now, with that being said the band is still very successful with this style but Gold is at his song writing best when he combines both sides of Woods Of Ypres into one song.

The production is quite unique. It’s not raw at all and is actually quite clean and loud, which works well towards creating the warm and summer (although gloomy summer) atmosphere. Everything is mixed perfectly and even the bass has its moments of glory. The lyrics are also not in the typical Black Metal style. They fit more in line with Doom Metal. Naturally one could almost consider parts of Woods Of Ypres Doom Metal, and I would be hard pressed to disagree. The overall feeling of depressiveness and impending doom comes across rather well and is a subtle contrast to the extreme, neck breaking sections of Black Metal found in the music. In fact, Allure Of The Earth is essentially a Doom Metal song.

David Gold is truly a song writing genius. He has managed to craft some of the most powerful and moody songs since The Mantle, and this is all from an essentially independent release. There is a good amount of variety here despite being firmly rooted in Black Metal and Doom Metal as there are even some traditional Metal leads and riffs that pop up every now and then. Granted, there may not be enough Black Metal in here for Black Metal fans and some might find Gold’s clean vocals limited (I think they’re great with only a few hitches), the fact remains that there is a truckload of talent present on this CD. It’s not from just a plethora of good ideas, it’s in the execution as well as I feel that everything Gold intended to portray in this CD has come through to the listener. Very few CD’s create the kind of imagery and atmospheres that Woods Of Ypres’ music represents and don’t be surprised if you here more and more about this band in the future. Their CD is available for purchase on their website, along with full MP3 samples. If you’re in the Toronto area you can probably find this release at most record stores in the downtown area.