Lighting a few candles, I settled down for the experience. The acoustic guitar spoke quietly through the opening track, ‘The Looming of Dust in the Dark’, accompanied by Gold’s emotional and sincere clear vocals; a combination that would provide an organic sound-scape to build the rest of the album upon. By the time the next track kicked into full swing, I was completely hooked. The music itself is varied; tired comparisons to early Ulver, Agalloch and Opeth – although adequate – do not really describe the sound in its totality. On the CD itself are the simple words ‘Summer Black Metal’, and this, I suppose, is as fitting a category as any. Clean vocals seem to outweigh the blackened rasps (which are surprisingly articulate), as do introspective and doom-laden riffs take precedence over blast-beats and tremolo picking, so perhaps the ‘black metal’ tag is also a bit lacking. This is not to say that numerous icy (or is that summery?) blasts are not present; take ‘Dragged Across a Forest Floor’ for example, a song that gallops along through its 9 minute duration with a few doomy stops along the way. ‘Summer’s Envy’, by contrast, flirts with an Amorphis-style catchiness and provides a good counterpoint to the rest of the album; other elements present are the subtle keyboards provided by Jessica Rose, the spot-on mastering by Glenn Fricker, and the haunting female backing vocals (performed by Sarah Green) that present themselves towards the end of the album.

Two words that spring to mind after listening to Woods of Ypres are ‘emotional’ and ‘sincere’; fans of music that is not tied up in trying to fit into a genre should check this one out; for a debut, it is surely one of the gems for 2004.

Standout tracks: The Will to Give, The Sun was in My Eyes (Parts 1 and 2), Dragged Across a Forest Floor, The End of August.

written by David Butler

Playing time: 61.16