Green and Wood -
Green and WoodReviewed by Andy "Dinger" Beresky (StonerRock.com)
Cyclopean Records
Available now
Usually I'm not gonna shell out the bucks on a vinyl only release from a band new I've barely heard, but based on the strength of the couple Green and Wood songs I'd heard, I was more than willing to plop down the $20 (plus shipping). I got my package about a week later from Cyclopean Records (along with a bizarre book they included, free of charge), but unfortunately my turntable had encountered a few problems within that period, and I'd procrastinated having them corrected professionally. Luckily, I lived right next to the local "audiopbile" store, so it was nothing a quick trip over couldn't remedy, and receiving this nicely packaged slab of orange wax was just the impetus I needed to make the trek. It was going to be a day until I got my deck back, but luckily Cyclopean included a nifty drop card that allowed me to download high quality mp3's of the tracks (forward-thinking labels take note: drop cards are the way to go these days).
So, 24 hours and $25 later, I was ready to give this album a proper spin, as Sweet Lucifer His Dark Majesty intended me to. I had by this time hung an included poster of the album's artwork on my wall, and had previewed the mp3s through my computer's cheap speakers, so I was pretty well prepared for what was going to spring through the speakers once that needle fell for the first time.
There are no surprises here; Green and Wood are a power trio who mine the same blues-based metal ranging from Sabbath to Sleep that we're so accustomed to hearing around these parts, and they do it quite well. They cover the full length and breadth of the "stoner" spectrum, from the mid-tempo power grooves, to the slow and low heavy riffing, to the darker psychedelic passages, and they often do it succinctly within the context of a single song. Considering that only one of these songs breaks the six minute mark (barely), it's quite a feat that the tunes manage to "travel" as much as they do, and that's one of the things that sets them apart from the herd. There are some truly great instrumental arrangements to be found on here, like the section in "War In The Sky", between the verses, where the band breaks into a tight, focused jam with the walking basslines and adventurous guitar work that recalls the first two Atomic Bitchwax albums. Or take the guitar arrangements of "Construct of Fear", from the carefully composed harmonies in the beginning, to the unique layering during the downtempo sections of the ending.
Of course, the other thing that sets Green and Wood apart is the songwriting itself. The vocals lines are catchy, melodic, and often accentuated by harmonies. The riffs are also hook-laden and totally hummable, but often take some strange twists and turns melodically without becoming forced or unfamiliar. It's a fine line to walk, and they straddle it well on album highlights such as "Banquet of Jupiter" and the title track.
All in all, what we've got here is more than just another entry into the stoner doom sweepstakes, it's really the measure by which a band should have to live up to in order to create a good debut album, rise up from the depths of obscurity, and become a household name. Within the more retro-minded and traditional subgenres of what we've come to call stoner rock, it's not enough to be able to ape Black Sabbath's techniques and tones to a "t". If there's not great songwriting and arrangements to back up the chops, all those rimshot drum fills and sharply distorted trills are going to fall upon deaf ears. Even when a band is capable of writing awesome songs with cool arrangments, they've got to be able to do it consistently for an entire album, and they've got to have some diversity within their writing while simultaneously preserving the continuiity of that album. Bands like Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Graveyard, and Witch all pulled this off and raised the bar considerably from the first notes of their first albums, and now you can add Green and Wood to that illustrious list. Highly recommended, expect to see this one on my end of the year top ten.
URL: http://www.myspace.com/GreenandWood
