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Worth The Wait - 94%
Well, its January 2008 , and the new Woods of Ypres opus has finally arrived. Wasn't this supposed to come out last June? And then in September? And then...? Oh never mind, what matters is that it has finally come out. So the question is, was it worth the wait?
The answer is a resounding yes. Though I had very high expectations for the album, it has delivered in almost all areas. Many of us long time fans wondered how the band would progress and mature since the release of their last disc, The Pursuit of the Sun and Allure of the Earth. What they did was take the aggressive approach of their well received demo and mix it with the more melodic moments of Pursuit to create a more complete and varied album.
While most of the bands past lyrics dealt with a love of nature and dislike for mankind, Woods 3 deals mainly with personal stories, with a few obvious exceptions (The Northern Cold, for example). Songs such as Your Ontario Town is a Burial Ground and the hauntingly beautiful December in Windsor give us a look at band leader David Gold's past, about old friends forgotten and relationships gone bad.
Musically, not much has changed, Blackened Agalloch-like melodies mixed with doomy elements and acoustic passages. This is once again a very vocal dominated record, broken up in the middle by the instrumental Trilllium. The music isn't allowed to breathe as much as I would like it to, and I'm also not crazy about the production. Jessica's keyboard parts are sometimes buried in the mix, and the organic sound the band is probably aiming for based on the atmosphere and lyrics sound a little thin instead.
Only time will tell if Woods 3 will hold the same place in my heart as the mighty Pursuit of the Sun. It does seem to get better with each subsequent listen, and the band have stated many times that they believe this is their most superior work so far, so who am I to argue?
