Woods of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light

When you talk of something being bittersweet it usually employs sorrow being forever attached to something. After David Gold’s untimely passing just days before Christmas last year the swirling din around Woods of Ypres continued to gather steam right up to the release of the band’s presumably final CD Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light. If you know well WOY’s morose content, both musically and lyrically, then this album will be a welcomed, albeit bittersweet venture.

One cannot go into this record and hear David Gold’s lyrics and not feel some sort of deep, questioning gnawing. Woods 5 seems to be a grand hour-long goodbye throughout, and while I am sure this was just one more extension of Gold’s sardonic wit and talent for brining the sorrowed to life it is a heavy undertaking. More so than usual, WOY’s view of death and ‘being gone’ really hits home with the tragedy incurred in December, but it was always leveled evenly when you knew David would be touring, chatting with fans and friends on his message boards and seemingly enjoying life. Maybe this was how he dealt with turmoil or inner struggle; most of us will never know…and do we want to?

Woods 5 is a depressing, yet beautiful taste of death through some haunting poetry and carefully-sculpted music that ascends over everything gravitationally confined to the earth’s ground. Everything from the concept of ‘God’, to only existing and learning to survive take us through “Death is Not an Exit”, which is about as haunting as “The Allure of the Earth” was gorgeous. There is that familiar Peter Steele vocal style attached to everything clean-tone, but for my dollar WOY holds up for the long haul much better than Type O Negative simply because the music means more to me on a cerebral level. When tapped into at just the right openings, music can fill voids and create worlds that no one could ever fathom outside of our circle. It is the insurmountable sadness as a whole that makes this album so indelibly…uplifting. Oxymoron aside, finding the beauty in death and sorrow is what keeps most of us alive, whether we know it or not. The lyrics of longing, leaving, dying and never coming back are only accentuated by some of the more lovely music I have had the privilege to hear of late. “Adora Vivos” has some wonderful instrumentation in both piano and string arrangement. When you hear “Career Suicide” you might think you stepped into a dance track until the guitars kick in and easily shatter that thought like antique glassware. The track’s realistic look at the perils of star-worship and how lamenting the dead is passé and unwarranted. You have to wonder if Gold’s sense of humor was more tongue-in-cheek than scarily prophetic. I choose to believe the former. Either way, what you take away from this album is entirely up to you and your frame of being. I will say that it is an exemplary collective that can lead you into worlds of tremendous wonder and realization or down roads of sullen futility and barren existence. Either way you will come away affected.   

Each track on this record is its own little trek through the belabored soul with slow, brooding vocals and musical passages that seem to drift aimlessly on blackened waters, while the faster, heavier post-black feel arises like Poseidon in “Traveling Alone”. WOY will probably be doomed to near anonymity outside the mainstream eyesight, and that’s perfectly fine. I am not so sure the American Idol crowd would understand an artist’s inner pain outside of a has-been Steven Tyler and never-was Jennifer Lopez rejecting some no-talent hack afraid of hard work. These two gentlemen (bassist/guitarist Joe Violette fills out the fold) managed to create some hugely ‘down’ music to such a high level that it should actually be one of the greatest accomplishments in indie/underground metal history, yet will undoubtedly go largely unnoticed.

This album serves not only as a perfect goodbye to David Gold but as a testament to how fragile and fleeting life can be. David has much to be proud of and I am grateful for his honestly and his vision; it’s a shame more people can’t be as thankful or nearly as astute as his fan base.

Release Date: January 31, 2012
Label: Earache Records

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Reviewer: Chris

February 8, 2012

1.  Career Suicide
      (Is Not Real Suicide)
2.  Travelling Alone
3.  Alternate Ending
4.  Lightning & Snow
5.  Finality
6.  Death Is Not An Exit
7.  Adora Vivos
8.  Silver
9.  Modern Life Architecture
10.  Kiss My Ashes (Goodbye) Part 1
11.  Kiss My Ashes (Goodbye) Part 2

Total playing time:  55:55

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