Canadian doomsters WOODS OF YPRES frontman/founder David Gold is featured in a new interview with Virginia's Magazine 33. An excerpt is available below:

33: You guys just signed with Earache Records, who has rereleased your first four albums. Why did you decide to sign with them after being independent for so long? Have you all heard any cries of "sellout" from anyone in the black metal community, or is your style of blackened/doom different enough that you don't hear that kind of criticism?

Gold: "I don't really acknowledge such a thing as a black metal community. I consider musical preference as a personal thing. For example, right now I'm listening to Robyn songs on YouTube as I type this. We signed a deal when the time was finally right for us. Earache offered us the chance at achieving the things we wanted, and we believed we could deliver on what we promised them. It just doesn't make any sense to accuse any band such as ours of 'selling out' after they've been independent for nearly nine years. Deal or no deal, Woods of Ypres can and will always continue. I agree though, and I do believe that we're different enough, and also because we've been around for so long that people don't really troll us these days, either because they already used to back in the day, and they don't have a problem with us anymore, or they've just grown older and tired and don't have the burning passion or energy they used to, or just that we've become so hard to categorize and therefore a difficult band to troll. With all the street cred we've earned and a loyal fanbase just as numerous as the deniers and the criticizers, it takes a lot of effort and brainpower to conclude an angle on which to attack us, and furthermore, more difficult to justify a reason why to attack us at all. We're all older and more wise now, it seems, both them and us. Life is more peaceful now than it once was, certainly."

"We've worked hard and found a way to make a lot of things happen for ourselves, so we haven't made it easy for reasonable people to blindly hate us anymore. We're as real of a band as you'll find these days. On the positive side, our listener base has grown huge, of whom were very happy for us finally having signed to Earache, and who are hotly anticipating new music from us. It's exciting to do this knowing and feeling there's an audience who really enjoys and appreciates what you do. That alone, justifies everything else."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

As previously reported, In celebration of Canada Day - a yearly event/holiday celebrating the anniversary of July 1st, 1867, which united three British colonies into a single country under the British Empire called Canada - we are counting down the key heavy musical masterworks in our history. Hence the the 30 Best Canadian Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Albums Of All-Time countdown which will run daily throughout July!

We've asked the BW&BK; scribes to list their faves of all-time and now we can present you with the list. And we will count-down one-a-day for 30 days! What better way to spent the dog days of summer than to visit BraveWords.com and check out which fine Canuck metal needs to be in your collection!

28) WOODS OF YPRES - Against The Seasons: Cold Winter Songs From The Dead Summer Heat (Krankenhaus - 2002)

Recently-signed to Earache Records, blackened metallers Woods Of Ypres struck earlier in their career with their debut Against The Seasons: Cold Winter Songs From The Dead Summer Heat which changed the landscape of this genre in Canada.

Writes David Perri, in his and Martin Popoff's book The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal Volume 4: The '00s: Ontario's Woods Of Ypres peaked early, the band never quite able to match the prowess of this phenomenal debut. Based in Windsor at the time (Windsor is literally right across from river from Detroit) but eventually re-locating to Toronto and then back to its native Sault Ste. Marie, Woods Of Ypres shocked everyone with this out-of-nowhere debut, the record receiving universal praise and rightly so. The fact that a self-released band could create such impressive black metal was a testament to the will of the group's founder and chief songwriter, David Gold, a self-avowed black metal fanatic. The quality of this album can't be stated enough: had it been released at the height of the early '90s Norwegian scene, Against The Seasons would have long ago been considered an essential classic of the sub-genre. Espousing cold black metal production (though not as cold or ice-obsessed as DARKTHRONE), Against The Seasons seethes with the sub-genre's vehemence but transcends the norm because of its impressive song-writing and flowing listenability: the tracks here are impeccably constructed, encased in soaring melody and despondent purpose. Almost a decade later, the record holds up and one is consistently reminded of that initial '02 amazement whenever Against The Seasons is re-visited; for a sub-genre fanatical about the obscure, I hope that this thing continually tape-trades like crazy in Scandinavia.