In The Woods ….. the Norwegian wood indeed as the band from Kristiansand embark on their sixth album over a 30 year period. Most of the members have joined in the last four years, and indeed the sound of the band has transformed from a black, pagan style to something dark still, but more akin to progressive and avant-garde.
The dark shadowy ambience of “The Coward’s Way” reminds me greatly of Green Carnation before the growls kick in. This is not entirely coincidental as lead member and drummer Anders Kobro was in Green Carnation for a number of years. Stylistically it’s moody, melancholic and strong, as if In The Woods want to parade their wares on the opener of these eight pieces. The lead vocalist Berndt Fellestad was with Susperia for their album “The Lyricist”. As I listened to the strange but patient “Moments”, it made me think I was listening to bands I listened to about 15 years ago, the era of Trail of Tears, the aforementioned Green Carnation, Communic and others. There is blackness in there too but it’s not corpse-paint sooty. Far from it. There’s a kind of understated epicness about all of this. “We Sinful Converge” is a lofty, black and harsh but it’s not extreme. The chorus is rousing and recalls the band’s pagan moments while having a folk tinge and that misleading childlike quality that Green Carnation purvey so well. And meanwhile while I’m trying to describe it, “We Sinful Converge” is a lovely song. The conclusion I was coming to was these are all decent songs, all delivered with instrumental tightness and dexterity but one thing I found disconcerting was the switching from a pungent melodic song to harshness, softness and choruses which are somewhere in between. I guess thus is the progressive, so say avant-garde nature of it but for me it unbalanced the atmosphere on songs like “The Malevolent God”. After a sampled intro, a quiet and sombre passage follows.
“A Wonderful Crisis” has the makings of a drama. Actually what followed was an emotive song. I hesitate to call it a power ballad but that’s the way we seem to be heading. The instrumental passage which follows lacks passion and all in all it’s gloomy affair, which I suppose matches its title. The growled vocals add confusion rather than clarity to the weak chorus. The persistent and dogged riff of “Humanity” recalls Katatonia briefly, but it breaks off and we are taken into a soft-growled vocal combo where a dark story is told. This hitherto fluid song is interrupted by an admirably atmospheric dark progressive passage. This for me was the highlight of a fairly anaemic song. “Maybe I could have done better, maybe I could have done worse” is the unilluminating opening lyric of “Master of None”. It’s a nice enough song with some growls thrown in, but in spite of its suggestion of epic qualities, it lacks power. There is the brief promise of a dark passage, but we return to the anti-drama of the beseeching chorus. The pattern remains the same on the final song “Your Dark” which only livens up midway through with a dark, growly passage, which serves as the brief filling of a sandwich whose outer layers are a dreary song.
I found this a mystifying album. I cannot fault the individual parts and indeed appreciated all the instrumental contributions. For me, the songs are just ok but as a whole the album didn’t reach out to me. There seemed to be a mix of darkness, emotion and epic elements in the songs but this didn’t amount to an explosion of creativity or an explosion of anything, and in the final outcome I thought that “Diversum” lacked energy and strength.
(6/10 Andrew Doherty)
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