Looming of Dust in the Dark (& The Illumination) (Intro)
The Wall to Give
The Sun Was in My Eyes, Pt. 1
The Sun Was in My Eyes, Pt. 2
Allure of the Earth
Shedding the Deadwood
Dragged Across a Forest Floor
Summer's Envy
The Ghosts of Summer's Past
The End of August (Outro)
For the love and hate of the season of summer: "Pursuit of the Sun & Allure of the Earth" is over 60 minutes of lush, organic heaviness contrastsing the bright light of soaring clean singing and golden acoustic passage... more »s with the darkness of harsh grim vocals and dirty,sweltering black metal straight from a humid summer forest! This honest and highly emotional 10 song journey explores the natural wonders of life, love, sadness and longing, all set in the theme of that one long, dreaded season. Songs of sun and sky, songs of night and earth, for daytime reflection and nightime contemplation, for fans of black and doom - this will be your "summer metal CD" for those hot and sad summer days.« less
For the love and hate of the season of summer: "Pursuit of the Sun & Allure of the Earth" is over 60 minutes of lush, organic heaviness contrastsing the bright light of soaring clean singing and golden acoustic passages with the darkness of harsh grim vocals and dirty,sweltering black metal straight from a humid summer forest! This honest and highly emotional 10 song journey explores the natural wonders of life, love, sadness and longing, all set in the theme of that one long, dreaded season. Songs of sun and sky, songs of night and earth, for daytime reflection and nightime contemplation, for fans of black and doom - this will be your "summer metal CD" for those hot and sad summer days.
CD Reviews
Contrast of light and dark
Tom Z | USA | 01/23/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Wow, no one else has heard of this band? This is easily the best album of 2004 and will probably be one of my favorites of all time. The sound is something you've probably come to expect from bands focusing on themes of nature, acoustics juxtaposed and intermixed with distorted, heavy parts.. Ulver, Agalloch and Opeth are the only other bands that have succeded at this level with the sound of contrasting chaos with tranquility.
Really, WOY are two different entities, the soft part and the hard part. The heavy part is black metal, leaning more toward the cult style than the mainstream. An occasional lead will show up and sometimes it's mixed the mellow part but mostly it's buzzsaw, downtuned black metal. During this time the drums blast away series of cannonfire, the vocals sound like a man possessed and the riffs shriek like angry banshees soaring through the forest.
Contrasted with the above is a rich, and textured mellow sound. Acoustics paint a picture of a calm and serenity. The singer is just as good at actually singing as he is doing BM vocals. Unique too, I can't really think of any good comparsion, just a nice, baritione voice.
Well, that's about all I can think of. Definitly a release that deserves more attention than it has previously garnered."
Woods of Ypres establishes "summer" black metal
M. Ness | Vancouver, Canada | 09/06/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It's a rare occasion these days where you know that within the first moments of an album you are about to experience something special.
With that said P.O.T.S & A.O.T.E is definitely the most compelling album I've heard in a while, maybe ever. The concept certainly should be enough to peak your interest "summer black metal", now before you start thinking about sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows (you were just singing that weren't you, it's ok to admit it), It's quite the contrary, Gold has found a whole new way to look at summer and it's quite ingenious.
The lyrics are the star of this show, the most profound I've heard in some time and there isn't a line on this record that doesn't stir the mind. As well as being so thought provoking they paint a picture, and touch on experiences everyone of us has had, allowing a rich tapestry of images to flow through your mind as you listen.
At the core the music is highly melodic black metal, but as you work your way through the album you see it's so much more than merely those 3 words. I love the clean guitar tone on this album, its just start of a stellar production job by Glenn Fricker over at Spectre Studios it is such that nothing is hidden, the mix is about as close to perfection as you are going to get.
There are a lot of highlights to this disc but particularly I found "Allure Of The Earth" and "The End Of August" to be my absolute favorites. "Allure Of The Earth" is the lyrical highlight of the album, it amplifies the "makes you think" aspect I mentioned above and really more than anything else betrays this album as unequivocally human. "The End Of August" features the angelic voice of Sarah Green, but in order to get to the highlight of this song, if not the whole album you have to get till some of it's final moments, you'll hear a simply mind-blowing duet between Green and Gold with no music at all, simply incredible.
To round out my favorites, and please note I mention 3 songs here but there are no bad songs on this album, "Dragged Across A Forest Floor" is a blast beat laden, heavy as all hell opus that should have most black metal fans worshipping the forest floor David Gold walks upon.
As you can see from all I've gushed about thus far, the album has something that should appeal to anyone, melodic black and doom metal fans should be creaming their pants over this album.
It's that good folks."
I don't know what to say.........its great!
Anathema | USA | 09/21/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Woods of Ypres is the best black doom metal band i've ever heard. Combining acoustic folk elements , traditional black metal aggresiveness and doom metal heaviness. If you dig distinct metal bands like Opeth, Katatonia, Green Carnation, Anathema, Swallow The Sun, then get this one now!"
Some interesting, original stuff here...I'm liking the atmos
Paul E. Palubinski | Denver, CO USA | 02/19/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"The first thing that got me pumped on this album is that it is called "Summer Black Metal". How rad is that? Not only is it rad, but it is also quite bold. Black metal has always been associated with winter nights, cold northerly winds, wolves howling at moons, reindeer, Mrs. Claus, family time around the fireplace, and, of course, hot cups of cocoa. There's nothing in there that is even slightly related to the summer and all it's foul imagery of warmth and laziness and frolicking in the meadows and patting horsies on their noses and feeding them delicious sugar cubes (they need their sugar cubes).
Imagery aside, the next thing that has to be said about 'Pursuit of the Sun & Allure of the Earth' (hence forth 'POTS&AOTE' which is almost as much work) is that it is brimful of atmosphere and mood. There is such a distinct feel and environment on this album, and it binds everything together so seamlessly into the concepts of nature, solitude and of course, summer. The atmosphere is so unique that 'POTS&AOTE' is the only album that can elicit those particular feelings in me (feelings that I didn't even know I had! I must have been suppressing them this whole time!!!). When I am in that certain mood, this is the only album that takes care of business.
Onto the music itself... For the most part we have a mix of atmospheric acoustic folk, doom and black metal. There is definitely some variety, but everything fits together really well. For the most part, the melodies and compositions are interesting, but there are some parts that I thought were tedious, drawn out, and even extremely simple and boring. It's definitely those parts that keep me from giving this album 5 stars like the other reviewers. But the other 4 stars are certainly merited and this is an album very much worth checking out..."
Track Listings (10) - Disc #1