By Carl Begai

Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light is arguably one of the strongest works in Woods Of Ypres frontman / founder David Gold’s catalogue of music. It’s certainly his most accessible album. Sadly, it also marks David’s final journey.

Killed in a car accident mere months before the official release, David never had the opportunity to enjoy the praise or consider the criticism of what is the most adventurous album of his career. And despite the accolades heaped to the sky, the simple truth is that not all diehard Woods Of Ypres fans will like it. Grey Skies & Electric Light is loaded with the doom and gloom they’ve come to expect, but the way it’s presented is much different from the revered Woods III and IV records. David’s clean voice dominates the new production over his death metal growls, the song arrangements don’t have the crushing density of its predecessors, and it’s loaded with brazen hooks big and small. Not what some expect of the blackened doom underground cornerstone of the genre. Current reactions indicate, however, that the majority of followers consider Woods 5 to be a masterpiece, and not merely as a show of respect for the fallen.

In an effort to showcase the new music, I spoke with Kittie vocalist / guitarist Morgan Lander, producer Siegfried Meier, and Woods Of Ypres guitarist Joel Violette, all of whom accompanied and worked with David during various stages of Grey Skies & Electric Light’s creation.

Joel Violette

Guitarist Joel Violette has the distinction of being David’s right hand man on Grey Skies & Electric Light, a responsibility he didn’t take lightly and one he continues to honour as Woods Of Ypres’ remaining voice. They initially came together as fans of one another’s work, which led to David playing drums on Joel’s THRAWSUNBLAT project in 2010. He recounts the events that got the ball rolling and eventually led to him writing for and recording Woods 5:

“I was sending David demos of my stuff from about 2004. I originally emailed him and asked if I could buy a copy of Woods 2, which is how it started, and eventually he asked me if I’d like him to play drums on an album for me. It was like, ‘Uh… fuck yeah!’ (laughs). Our schedules finally worked out, and I think it was April or May 2009 when David recorded the drums for Thrawsunblat. It was about two weeks before they went into the studio for Woods 4. The following year they needed a lead guitarist, and the offer came: ‘Do you wanna tour North America with Woods?’ It was a no-brainer; of course I said yes.”
“I did the tour in the summer of 2010, and we were going to record what we thought was going to be Woods 5. David had written most of the song structures, and I had the offer to do the lead guitar on the album if I wanted to. I was really only a hired gun for the tour, but I wanted to stay on, and we finally ended up putting out Woods 4.5. When we did the Eastern Canada and US tour in March, that’s when we started talking seriously about Woods V because the Earache deal was signed at that point. I had a great time working with David on Woods 4.5, and I really wanted to contribute to the new material. So, I recorded some demos that he really liked, and that’s how I ended up coming to work on the album.”
“Funny enough, I discovered Woods Of Ypres within the first couple years of me getting into metal. They were one of the founding bands that I listened to, so I suppose the Woods sound is part of my style on some level.”

Regardless of the “band” tag, Woods Of Ypres was always David’s baby. Prior to the Earache deal, he did all of the behind-the-scenes administrative work, and he made all the creative decisions. The fact that Joel welcomed into the writing process as an equal contributor says a lot about David’s opinion of him.

“It was pretty crazy, actually,” Joel admits. “I was really excited to be as involved with it as I was. Obviously, the whole thing was within the scope that David had created for Woods V; he knew what he wanted the album to be. David invited me up to Sault Ste Marie to write with him, and we brainstormed on some things, but it was always David’s call in the end. I wrote demos that I thought fit into that scope, and we both had two or three song skeletons each when we got together. We planned on having 12 skeletons done within that two week period of writing, and it worked out that way with six songs each. It was very cool that David liked my output and gave them his okay.”

Joel goes on to say that making Woods V an accessible record to metal fans dimly aware or completely oblivious of Woods Of Ypres was intentional. He makes it clear that Earache Records didn’t dictate the types of songs they wanted in order to fulfill certain record deal requirements.

Regarding the simplicity of some arrangements – and the potential connection to the fact that there were only two of us in the studio – David frequently noted the difference between the Woods 5 studio experience and that of Woods 1 through 4 in that we finished everything we wanted to record with a couple days to spare. The last couple days we were just fiddling with things, rather than jamming in as much recording as we could. I think that’s noteworthy. We went in there wanting to do ten songs and a couple bonus tracks, and we ended up finishing all the material we went into the studio with. It’s all on the full release.”

“There was a bit of involvement from Earache after the fact. We sent the finished tracks to them with the proposed tracklist, and they came back with their own tracklist, which included ‘Keeper Of The Ledger’ as a bonus track rather than song #3 as we’d suggested. That’s probably the densest and lush song on Woods 5, and maybe it’s for that reason Earache didn’t want it in the heart of the album. David and I talked about that song, and we came to the conclusion it encompasses everything Woods had done before and puts it in a Woods 5 context, bringing everything full circle. But, Earache reverted to David’s tracklist for the actual release, in tribute, which puts ‘Keeper Of The Ledger’ back as the third song.”

Like Morgan, Joel will be performing a special set at one of the scheduled tribute shows, finally giving him a chance to say goodbye.

“I’ll be doing a set with Rae Amitay, the drummer who would have come with us on our European tour this month. She and I are going to a kind of piano / acoustic set of Woods songs at the Sault Ste Marie show. We both sing, so we’re going to put that together. It’ll be something special.”

In closing, Joel sheds some light on a statement he made in a press release following David’s passing that seemed to suggest Woods Of Ypres will carry on. One comment in particular – that he would “endeavour to complete what can be completed given the circumstances” – caused a certain amount of backlash and confusion, but Joel makes it clear he has no intention of trying to cash in on the Woods Of Ypres name.

“With that press release, I guess I wanted to put some hope into the whole situation somehow. Putting out a statement that said ‘Well, that’s the end of Woods Of Ypres. Seeya…’ seemed wrong. We did have a lot of cool plans for future album, but you obviously can’t write a Woods album without David. During the Woods 5 recording process I was messing around with Woods 1 songs on the keyboard, and David thought it was awesome. We talked about doing acoustic piano-based Woods songs and releasing them. That’s about the only thing I could imagine coming out under the Woods Of Ypres name. David was really stoked about the idea and we talked about it on several occasions, so I think it would be a nice tribute to him to get something like that out there. It would be a good way to cap off his legacy.”

Check out the interviews with Morgan Lander and Siegfried Meier here.