Woods Of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies And Electric Light

In December last year I found out about a band under the worst possible circumstances. David Gold, frontman to black/doom metallers Woods Of Ypres was killed in a car crash at age 31. The same age I was at the time. A sobering moment indeed. And it is with that sobriety that I cannot help listening to the band's unintentionally final album, Woods 5: Grey Skies And Electric Light. I have tried, for the purpose of impartiality, to separate the music from the tragedy, but given the album's subject matter I have found it impossible.

The core of the album's subject matter deals with death, loss and the impermanence of life. Much of the album deals with the thought that this life is all you get, going so far as, in Death Is Not An Exit, stating that there is nothing after this. It's almost a more depressing album that Sentenced's The Cold White Light, although often dealing with the nature of death rather than the actuality of it.

Given all that, it would be reasonable to assume that the album is musically depressing, too. Packed with morose dirges and downbeat drones. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the riffs are catchy, the rhythm is strong and the verse-chorus-verse structure makes from some memorable songs that it's easy to sing along to, getting the head nodding and the emotions stirring. Some songs feature some light orchestration, and a lilting oboe adds a quiet mournfulness to Travelling Alone. There have been many, many comparisons to Type O Negative, and I'll make another, but only in tone and vocal style, Gold's baritone voice carrying the weight of the lyrics beautifully. The songs on Woods 5 are, in a morbid way, far more upbeat than the comparison would suggest.

This dichotomy of musical versus lyrical mood adds power to the messages behind each song. It's not just some doom/goth band being morose for the sake of it; it's a band singing about the truth of life, and death, warts and hurt and pain and all. Even the ostensibly pro-life songs Death Is Not An Exit, Adora Vivos and Career Suicide (Is Not Real Suicide) manage to carry this world weary knowledge that life is for now because this really is all there is. The best we can manage is getting to the end without making a complete hash of it. There is no god, no fate, no greater truth to bail you out.

Woods 5 has rapidly crept up my list of best albums of 2012, and is both tribute and memorial to David Gold. This album, with its posthumously prophetic songs Kiss My Ashes Goodbye, Finality and Alternate Ending, will leave its mark on the world of metal for a good while to come. A fitting, unfortunate end to Woods Of Ypres musical career.