Woods Of Ypres has been both praised and despised by metalheads everywhere, and for good reason. I started listening to the band when their third album came out, 2007's The Deepest Roots And Darkest Blues. After listening to that album and some other songs from previous albums, I found the band to be very hit or miss. Sometimes they can write quite a moving song, at other times it sounded like cliché emo garbage. I did not have great expectations for The Green Album, especially after reading the track list, which to be honest made me cringe with titles like And I Am Pining (For You) and Suicide Cargoload. Unfortunately instead of building on some of the strengths of their past albums, the band decided to take the slower, gothic sound further, but also make it whinier and more monotonous. I won't lie, listening to this almost 80 minute (!) album all in one sitting was almost unbearable and I have a feeling it will have the same effect on most people except those who can't get enough whiny gothic metal.

The first song, Shards Of Love, starts out very melodic. Vocalist David Gold does remind me of Andreas "Vintersorg" Hedlund, which is a point in his favor, unfortunately he does not sing with nearly the power or emotion that Vintersorg delivers. The lyrics of this song also bore me, they are just so cliché that it's really laughable. Guitars finally come in after about 3 minutes, but they sound like an extremely watered down attempt of black metal riffs. Ok, so we're off to a bad start. Everything I Touch Turns To Gold (Then To Coal) comes in next with heavier doomy guitar riffs, then the half-moaning, half-chanting vocals of David Gold come in, which for me are just too dramatic and over the top, not to mention the guitar riffs get boring after the first verse because nothing new is offered over the song's entire 5 minute duration. The next track is not much different. About halfway through I Was Buried In Mount Pleasant Cemetery I really want to stop listening because there's just nothing of value here. The reason it pisses me off is because I know the band could produce quality material if they just wrote some more interesting songs and stop repeating the same shit over and over. You don't have to be the most energetic band when you're playing this kind of sad, depressive music (just look at Type O Negative), but you do have to spice it up and make it interesting somehow, i.e. write songs that do not all sound so much alike. There is some interesting guitar solo work towards the end of the track, but this song is just way too long (almost 8 minutes). I should have heard some of this faster stuff earlier in the song. It seems they tried to build up to the faster guitar work, but I'm not buying it. The vocals in Dirty Window Of Opportunity do not sound bad, but it's still missing something, some type of excitement and energy that is needed to get me interested.

It honestly sounds to me like Woods Of Ypres recorded every song idea they come up with for this album, and that just does not work. The opening to And I Am Pining (For You) actually sounds kind of exciting, it’s got the fastest tempo so far and some good guitar work. Unfortunately the vocals and lyrics do not keep pace with the music, though they are tolerable. Once again the riffs and song structure is relatively simple, but at least it sounds like there's some emotion behind the music. Towards the end there is even some slide guitar that adds something interesting. Halves And Quarters is actually somewhat decent; it has good energy and it's quite catchy, not to mention much, much shorter than most songs on the album. Don't Open The Wounds is another mostly enjoyable song on the album, beginning with some synthesizers and then heavy, melodic guitar riffs. The harmonized vocals actually do not sound bad, and the vocalist sounds like he's got more feeling in this song. Natural Technologies is decent as well, but I feel like the songs with more growled vocals are better, which is sad because the vocalist could clearly sing with such power if he would just put some more energy and emotion behind it instead of sounding so monotone.

Woods Of Ypres really have not done anything to improve their sound since their last album. In fact the vocals and overall feel of the music is whinier and lost a lot of heaviness in my opinion. The lyrics are meant to be sad and dark, yet they feel very cliché and uninspired. I do feel like the band could produce some great songs if they would just put some emotion and energy behind their music and work on polishing their songs instead of writing so damn many. There are some good guitar parts and it seems like the guys want to try a lot of different things, but they really just need a solid direction to go in. Another problem is the length of the album. Sixteen tracks and almost 80 minutes is just too much, especially when most of the songs are very long and repetitious. All in all this is not a terrible album for those who are die-hard fans of dark gothic metal, but my guess is that most will find it a chore to listen to at best.