Band:	Woods Of Ypres
Album:	Woods III: The Deepest Roots And Darkest Blues
Style:	Melodic black metal, Doom metal
Release date:	December 2007
Guest review by:	Boxcar Willy

01. The Northern Cold
02. Iron Grudge
03. Your Ontario Town Is A Burial Ground
04. Through Chaos And Solitude I Came...
05. Years Of Silence (And The Private Joke)
06. Distractions Of Living Alone
07. Deepest Roots: The Belief That All Is Lost
08. Darkest Blues: The Relief That Nothing Can Be Done
09. Thrill Of The Struggle
10. December In Windsor
11. Trillium: The Third Of Three Winters, 2004-2007
12. Song Of Redemption
13. End Of Tradition
14. To Lock Eyes With A Wild Beast
15. Mistakes Artists Make (The Dream Is Dead)

With the passing of David Gold, and the demise of Woods Of Ypres, we are left with only David's previous work. Today I've decided to review Woods III, which is the equivalent to the little brother in the family that everybody ignores.

That being said, this album is far from the gem of the bunch. This is due to several reasons. The biggest reason is the off-production, it's not lo-fi and "underground", and it's not pristine and streamlined. It's stuck somewhere in the middle; things are mixed wrong, and there are little audio bumps. Another thing that brought this album down was the repetitive nature of the music. Most of the songs follow the same structure, and feature similar melodies: intro, tremolo, clean chorus, tremolo, outro.

The riffs also follow along the same paths as the others; however, there are a lot of good songs and interesting riffs displayed here ("The Northern Cold") and even some good piano work. However, when you add the 76-minute run time on top of some repetitive melodies, this becomes quite a chore to listen to front and back.

Now after that swarm of bad things, here comes the cold northern breeze of good qualities. One of the things I love about this album, and all of Woods Of Ypres' work, is David's ability to write lyrics. They are dark and depressing, yet nice and upbringing. A lot of them relate to a broken childhood - which I for one, can relate to. He seems to write straight from his soul. (My cheese meter just broke.)

Anyway, with all these factors combined, they reveal an album with a lot of potential, if they would have cut the length a little and worked on the production, this could have been one killer album.

Highlights: "The Northern Cold", "Through Chaos And Solitude I Came"