The Official WOODS OF YPRES - W4: "The GREEN Album" Thread.

Assuming the album will grow on me even more as time goes on as the last ones have so much over the years, Woods IV might find its way into my all time favorites! its unreal :worship:
 
I just got the album today, and I really like it. I am enjoying listening to it very much. I have been "priming" myself by listening to the 3 previous albums repeatedly. This scratches a different itch than the earlier albums. I consider that to be a good thing. When I was younger I was a really big fan of Type O, and bands that were a bit more down tempo. I have been getting into other bands, like Jesu, and Alcest, that are not blazingly fast recently. This album comes at a time when my apetite is ready for this style of music.
This will be added to the CD changer as a permanent fixture, along with the other 3. Now I have to decide which Enlsaved album to take out. This is tough.


Interesting fact; There are 16 tracks, but the numbers go to 15. The number 9 is repeated. While I was typing them in to media player, it threw me off. So, use the inside of the booklet, not the back of the sleeve. (this is the only time I have ever entered the info manually. normally I am too lazy, but I figured that i want to listen to this on my computer, and in my car)
 
A package arrived in my mailbox from David Gold today. If its a severed head, I'm going to be very upset.
 
I've been listening to this album non-stop for the past 8 days. All I can say right now is holy shit did this surpass my expectations. I'll post something more cognizant tomorrow or on the weekend.

Joel :kickass:
 
Count me also in the 'blown away' category. The songs are absolutely beautiful (can I say that about Metal music?), and the very open and personal nature of the lyrics is something I've rarely heard from any other artist. After just a few spins this album is definitely headed into my all time favorites list.

Congratulations to David and the band, this is really an excellent record and you should all be proud as hell.
946110.gif
 
I love the album. I've listened to the album once a day(or more) since It arrived. I love all the tracks. I am really digging the broad sub-genres that are fused. Having Doom, Black, Goth and Sludge all on the same album and having it flow smoothly is quite impressive. The vocals are the best yet. This album is tied for my album of the year. Good Stuff!!!
 
I miss Hae Jan Gul (pig spine soup). I ate pig jowls and grill neck meat in BUsan last month. Tasty stuff.


David Gold said:
Pedro Chae (Urlok) is NECRAMYTH. He's probably the most macho-metal-madman in all of South Korea, and in terms of metal and the metal lifestyle, he's one of the most passionate people I've ever met.

He now lives in Madrid, Spain with his wife and new baby. He was transfered there for his job not long after I left the country (Note: Pedro is Korean, but was born and raised in Spain. If I understood correctly, he didn't move to Korea and start learning Korean until his twenties. Spanish is his first language, English is his second, Korea is third. Smart guy.). I spoke with him a few weeks ago. He said "Come to SPAIN man! We can jam! ...and drinking!" (quote). He tells me he has a new band started, post-NECRAMYTH, under a new name. Like me, he's the kind of guy who's always writing riffs! I will be making plans to take him up on his offer at some time, at least to visit. It would be an epic reunion! I was joking with him how he is like my "Global Metal Guide" to the world. It's like, I show up in a new country and he'll be there to meet me at the airport and take me around! He was once my guide, teaching me how to live Korea and one day he'll be showing me the good life in Madrid, Spain.

I miss the NECRAMYTH guys, and often long for my bittersweet days in Seoul (...It seems I just keep filling old voids with new voids. Not a bad strategy really. I'm always living something new while missing something and someone from the past). We can never go back of course, as all four of us NECRAMYTH guys are in different places now, but for 12 months, we were together as a band, sweating through 2-3 rehearsals a week, playing shows almost every weekend, writing songs and working towards the recording...being a real, gigging, LIVE band! + Soju, beer, BBQ, pig-spine soup, metal karaoke, and lots of laughs (always loosely translated and probably often lost in translation, but always hilarious).

"Slaughter of the Seoul!!!!!". I worked my tired, shitty, bleeding heart back to life on the drums with the help of those guys and this band. I can't imagine my life without them. Korea and NECRAMYTH were great to me, and I'm really happy to be able to help bring the NECRAMYTH album to a whole new audience as part of the limited edition W4 release, and eventually as its own CD package sometime soon. Maybe if it really catches on, we can hope to reunite on stage at WACKEN or something in 20 years. :heh:

Until then, please keep spreading the word! Thanks!!

D - w/
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This album really strikes a chord with me. Woods III really blew me away, but Woods IV is several steps above that album. On Woods III there were a couple weak songs IMO and on Woods IV every song just plain rules! Back in October my girl and I were going through a rough period and David Gold told me during a conversation that I would be able to relate to the album. Anyway, me and my girl managed to work things out and on November 10th she actually proposed to me and on the 24th Woods IV arrived... 3 days later my fiancee broke up with me, for the last time. I won't bore you with the details, but Woods IV has kept me going through these dark days and it has made me realize that I COULD live in the past and remain depressed or I could put a smile on my face and look towards the future. I chose the latter and now look upon this breakup as a blessing in disguise. I have NO REASON to be sad I'm getting A+'s in college, I'm starting work full time on Monday down at Workers Compensation Board, I have great friends and family, a good buddy has offered to be my personal trainer in the gym free of charge(!),and great music to listen to! I actually feel bad for Mel since shit has just been plummeting for her.
Anyway more about the album. The first song and my favourite song is "Wet Leather" and it actually brought tears to my eyes. Very few songs have done this to me "Pain" by Grammatrain, "Bother" by Stone Sour, and "Allure of the Earth" are the only other 3 songs that have done this. Other stand out tracks include "And I am Pining (For You)", "Retrosleep in the Morning Calm", "Don't Open the Wounds", "Shards of Love", and "By the Time You Read This (I Will Already be Dead)" but honestly I could include almost every song here. This is I think my favourite album ever written it hits me deep and hard, but it also brings a smile on my face even when I'm feeling down. So from the bottom of my heart thank you David for being so honest and sharing this breathtaking piece of art with the world I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for this CD. If this doesn't land you a record contract then every record company is staffed by deaf, incompetent morons. Brilliant album!

Joel

P.S. In a wierd twist it just occured to me that Mel asked me out a few hours before WoY's show here in August lol.
 
I see 'W4: The GREEN Album' on lots of listeners' Top 10 list for 2009! Thank you so much! This is great to see.

Technically though FYI, from our perspective, W4 is a 2009 release for the listeners (the legion of many committed and loyal, consistently pre-ordering WOODS diehards!!!! Thank you! :)), but it will be an early 2010 release for the "industry" (most, but not all, of which have their heads up their asses).

By that I mean that the metal "press" will have not had an opportunity to hear the new album until early 2010, and we will be promoting it all year in hopes of exposing it to a wider audience and seeing it on many more Top 10 lists at the end of 2010. Just an FYI, to avoid confusion about this.

Widespread 'GREEN Album' success would be a great way to start off the new decade as we try to determine how WOODS OF YPRES will fit into the future of the music biz (It's changed in scary new ways, even since WIII came out less than two years ago).

We're already working on budgeting for the recording of W5 :kickass:, which will be yet another exciting shift in WOODS OF YPRES theme and sound and a welcome return to a particular 'season' in which to revisit and explore "feelings", old and new. :) "Pursuit of the Sun" who????? We're only just getting started here. All the best is yet to come, honesty and sincerely...(says your favourite trusted black & doom metal salesman).

Stay detuned(c#) and thank you sincerely for all your support! Please keep spreading the word out there! It's working!

DG - \w/
 
FOUR (4!) Things!:

1) WOODS OF YPRES - W4: The GREEN album is the #2 Best Seller at The End Records this week! http://www.theomegaorder.com/WOODS-OF-YPRES-IV-The-Green-Album-ltd-ed-2CD

2) W4: The GREEN album is now CRUSHING, low and slow, on i-tunes worldwide so please support the new medium and buy!

3) W4: The GREEN album is in stock at CD stores (HMV, CDPlus, etc...) CANADA-wide, so please go to the mall and pick up a copy!

4) A few copies of the 1000 limited edition 2CD version (including disc two: NECRAMYTH - "Slaughter of the Seoul") are still available direct from the band! See the forum for details: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...ficial-woods-ypres-w4-green-album-thread.html Thanks!!! DG - w/
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:kickass:
 
New Review from 'Difficult Music':

http://diffmusic.blogspot.com/2009/12/woods-of-ypreswoods-4-green-album.html

Woods of Ypres do things that metal bands are not supposed to do. Head songwriter David Gold writes in the first person, but doesn't indulge in any role playing. He battles inner demons, not supernatural entities. The lyrics encompass vulnerability and longing as well as anger—the latter arises out of the former. Musically, Woods tackles several genres within a single album, which is refreshing in a time when bands rewrite the same song 10 times and call it an album.

Woods 4 includes some "Peaceville 3"-style doom, some melodic, mid-paced Katatonia/Amorphis rockers, some orchestrated piano-and-strings sections, some blasting BM and DM bits, and a couple hammer-headed sludge tunes. So although the band's PR material labels their sound as black and doom, listeners looking for an earful of one or the other will come away unfulfilled. But for those who want variety and regard scene policing with contempt, Woods have delivered another enjoyable and highly successful album.

Thematically, the album that Woods 4 most reminds me of is Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood. Both albums begin with the death of a relationship and chronicle the personal journey that follows. In Marillion’s case, vocalist Fish loses himself in backstage debauchery and in various identity crises provoked by the touring life. For David Gold, the post-breakup journey is just that: he takes an opportunity to travel abroad (“Dive into exile!” as “Dirty Window of Opportunity” puts it), and deals with isolation and regret while finding a new life in South Korea.

Musically the band covers more ground than ever. The variety of the material is necessary to sustain the listener’s interest for a 78-minute album. The sequencing of songs helps as well. There are breaks between tracks (unlike Misplaced Childhood), but after a few listens to the entire album, I started hearing the songs as a series of suites. The opening of the album is consumed with gloom and sadness, and the tempos reflect this. The doom is quite My Dying Bridal on “Everything I Touch Turns to Gold (then to coal)”, with Gold's “whoa-oh-oh”s standing in for MDB’s violin lines. The opening movement ends with “I Was Buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery" (Gold’s favourite titling theme has a rhyming scheme) and the narrator's figurative death before he assumes a new identity as a single man in a foreign land. The most intriguing stretch of songs lies at the heart of the running order, from “Wet Leather” (the album's most immediately catchy song), “Suicide Cargoload” and “Halves and Quarters” (two brief but heavy rockers) and “You Are Here With Me (in this sequence of dreams)” a lullaby/lament with instrumentation by Musk Ox. This is where the album's depth and variety is really evident.

With all this going on, the album works it way from the personal to the universal, from the opening scene of a breakup to the closing track’s call for a tenuous truce between sexes: “Women move on. Men move on.” Tellingly, this is where the voice switching to the 2nd person, as if to impart some hard-fought wisdom to the listener. This song—"Move On! (the woman will always leave the man)"—also invokes the seasons, a nice reference to the themes from previous Woods releases.

Woods of Ypres have outdone themselves with this album, and again have demonstrated that metal doesn't have to be purely a vehicle for escapism. The plain-spoken nature of Gold's lyrics might throw some people off, but for me, Gold's words and images paint vivid, precise pictures. Each song is like a heavy metal Alex Colville painting, a scene revealed in unforgiving, relentless light.
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:)
 
The Green Album has gotten quite a bit of time in my CD player since it arrived. The album is just plain amazing. I love the evolution and variety throughout the entire album. I don't think I can add anything that hasn't already been said, just wanted to chime in and :worship:

I was also very pleased to receive the Necramyth CD along with it. It's a great compliment to the Green Album.
:kickass:
 
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