I should be getting ready for a spirited game of Ulti on this fine Saturday morning, but it was cancelled and besides, I am not feeling well. So it is a “housing” day for me, starting with the best of all possible in-house activities – enjoying music.
Disc 1923 is…Woodland Rites
Artist: Green Lung
Year of Release: 2019 (although my copy is a 2025 re-issue)
What’s up with the Cover? Looks like some keen young witches and warlocks have headed out into the woods for some dancing and revelry with Satan and some demons. The woods ringing this glade are filled to the brim with forest critters both mundane and magical. Search carefully and find them all! My favourite of these is the owl-demon playing drums in the top left, but the regular owl beside him is also lovely.
The witches and warlocks are no doubt wondering, “will we have sexual congress with the devil?” and judging by the meaningful glance being exchanged between the couple in the bottom left of the dance circle, I am going to say, “signs point to yes”.
What they are probably not wondering is, “at the end of the night will some of us be eviscerated, murdered, and left to feed the creatures of the forest?” Based on those skulls piled up in the lower right corner I’m going to once again say “signs point to yes”.
How I Came To Know It: I got into Green Lung through the release of their third album, 2023’s “This Heathen Land,” and found “Woodland Rites” by plunging into their back catalogue. I’m like a pig chasing truffles once I’ve got the scent of a new band.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Green Lung LPs. They’re due to release one later this year but for now, that’s all of them. They are all great, and “Woodland Rites” is in a dead heat for #1 with the aforementioned “This Heathen Land”. I’m going to side ever so slightly with my first love and put “Woodland Rites” in at #2.
Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5
Green Lung are a riff-driven stoner metal band from England who like to write songs about the devil. A lot. I’m not sure if they like to sing about the devil more than say, Ghost, but they’re in the conversation. Papa V Perpetua be warned – there’s a new antichrist in town.
Well, actually, that new antichrist is not in town, he’s in the forest. As you might expect from an album named “Woodland Rites,” this record is heavily themed to the whole ‘witches cavort in the woods with Satan’ trope. There’s also crossover with “ancient forest demon” vibes that lean into a more non-denominational evil.
OK, so that’s the theme established, but how is the music? Amazing, that’s how. “Woodland Rites” is eight tracks of furious guitar crunching glory. You will have thrown your neck out from moshing by the end side one. Every one of these riffs has a timelessness to it that makes it feel like it could have been on Black Sabbath’s first record or released yesterday. This is horns up, hair down, controlled aggression from start to finish.
Don’t mistake “controlled aggression” for being tame. This is the kind of controlled aggression akin to shaking a can of beer for forty minutes. Pressure rising and rising with explosive energy with nowhere to go, just quivering and ready to go off at any moment.
Vocalist Tom Templar sings in a high head voice with an otherworldly quaver in his tone. It is a bit Ozzy and a bit Rev. Maynard with a “far from the mic” kind of echo to it. His phrasing perfectly matches the mid-tempo thump of the song structures, each word deliberate and loaded with fell and sorcerous intent.
And what does Mr. Templar have to say? As noted above, the record is heavily themed to covens and devil worship. The title track (and the best riff on a record with a lot of great riffs) is about just that. Set on the pagan festival night of Walpurgis, our story opens early with someone approaching an event likely best left alone:
“At the gloaming on Walpurgis night
In the forest you saw our fires alight
The trees were talking, they whispered your name
Darkness was falling as you walked toward the flames”
From here, as you might expect, things get serious. The next track, “Let the Devil In” is about that fell invitation in every tale of this type you’ve likely read or heard around a campfire. The melody (and the best riff on the record…wait, did I already pick one? Damn it…) is triumphant and enticing just like the dark invitation the song describes. Of course, this being Green Lung, poor choices are made and things continue to go south.
At this point I should note that this is all just pretend. A Green Lung record is best enjoyed like a horror movie – delightfully scary and transgressive, but explored from the safety of literary and artistic devices. Of course, if you don’t like the thrill of a horror movie, or you find the very notion of creepy satanic woodland rituals abhorrent (a perfectly understandable response) then this record is not for you. You’ve been warned.
On their later records, Green Lung has explored a broader range of sound and song structures, making those records a bit more dynamic to listen to. I like the evolution of their sound, but while “Woodland Rites” is more of a “singular sound” kind of record it is done so exceptionally well you are happy with forty-two minutes of more of the same.
In an era where a lot of modern metal bands are exploring the genre’s early origins, you can get some very derivative outcomes, but not so here. “Woodland Rites” is a love letter to earlier forms, yes, but more like a flower that has fully bloomed than a copy.
If you’re OK with being a little horrified – or maybe excited by the danger of it all - and you like classic riffs played with exceptional skill, then this record will not disappoint. If songs that “let the devil in” (even for-pretend) make you nervous, best move along and leave that flickering light in the forest for those more brave or foolish.
Best tracks: Woodland Rites, Let the Devil In, The Ritual Tree, Templar Dawn, Into the Wild
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