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Woods Of Ypres: Grey skies & electric light
10/01/12 || Will Cifer
I got my hard drive on “Grey skies & electric light”, the now posthumous release of Woods of Ypres, the day after learning of singer David Gold’s death. It was set to be the band’s first album on Earache Records and put to rest message board babble of the band breaking up. The Canadian band was often tagged as being blackened doom. Both black metal and doom felt like misnomers due to the more straight ahead hooky melodies that filled the void left by Type O Negative’s absence.
The weak opener “Career suicide (is not real suicide)” could have been saved for a b-sides compilation. It spotlights their tragic flaw of looking back into ’90s alternative rock. Faith was restored by the second song “Traveling alone”. The song’s feel is more of a logical progression from 2009’s “Green album”. The backing instrumentation on this track and throughout the rest of the album stays solid if not adventurous. The band plays with a drive like chasing the silver lining to a perpetually cloudy day. It’s this sense of movement that makes the album an easy listen.
Despite the sparse deviations into harsher vocals the album never muscles its
way into territory heavier than an album like “Slow, deep and hard”. The
mournful mood is best set in songs lending breathing room to piano and
string arrangements. Even on the more ambitious pieces like “Alternate
ending”, Gold displayed his skill as a songwriter by not being bogged
down by grandiosity like most post-“October rust” era goth metal. The
Peter Steely inflections are still present yet Gold has painted a
clearer picture of his own narrative voice.
Where some metal bands fall into pretentious feigned melancholy, Gold had a
certain honesty in his delivery. His voice is convincingly bleak, though more
comfortable as a baritone, the awkward reaches for Michael Gira-like low
notes, on the outskirts of his range the only lapses into Hot Topic nu
goth. Only on the
song “Modern life architecture” do the stumbles into this register inhibit the
potential for melody. Gold’s voice always set the band apart and worked best
layered with the double tracked harmony sections. The melodies’ marriage to the
lyrical content makes up for this, as Gold was more contemplative and less
pining. Morose and earnest pleas to the world around him, rather than
the pseudo-poetic musing of a post break-up middle school cutter.
It is safe to say Ypres isn’t going to spurn an after-death revival with this, as midway through the album my baby momma asked why was I listening to the Crash Test Dummies. Fans of harder fare than Type O or Agalloch would find the band’s earlier work a more fitting entry point. Ypres’ existing fan base will find the album morbidly timely, a lyrical inscription on Gold’s headstone and fitting final chapter in the band’s legacy.
- Information
- Released: 2012
- Record Label: Earache Records
- Website: Woods Of Ypres MySpace
- Band
- David Gold: vocals, guitars
- Joel Violette: lead guitar
- Shane Madden: bass
- Rae Amitay: drums
- Track Listing
- 01. Career suicide ( is not real suicide)
- 02. Travelling alone
- 03. Alternate ending
- 04. Lightning & snow
- 05. Finality
- 06. Death is not an exit
- 07. Adore vivos
- 08. Silver
- 09. Modern life architecture
- 10. Kiss my ashes (goodbye) Pt 1
- 11. Kiss my ashes (goodbye) Pt 2
