Woods of Desolation was formed by D., in the year 2005 in Australia. Working alone in the band, handling all the instruments, Woods of Desolation released several demos and splits. In 2009, D. was joined by Desolate (Mitch Keepins) of Austere and handled the vocals in the EP "Sorh". Soon, Desolate left the band and was replaced by Tim Yatras of Austere, who handled the drums and vocals, and the gave us this piece of emotionally-charged music titled "Torn Beyond Reason".
Not having heard previous works of the band, I cannot comment on how different/similar this record is to the others, but Woods of Desolation's music can perfectly be described as sorrowful, with great emphasis on melodies, yet keeping up the qualities that puts it under the "Black Metal" category. This may or may not be a conscious effort, but is certainly favourable, considering the type of music they make. The songs are filled with tremolo-picked guitar riffs and very dynamic and energetic drumming, which makes it a lot less depressive, yet the tremolo-picked guitar melodies manage to invoke a sense of desolation and sorrow. That is combined with screamed and wailed vocals and rather generic emotionally-charged lyrics that are only few steps away from entering the "cheesy" territory, yet not quite stepping into it. The riffs and melody have very little to absolutely no Black Metal influence, barring the distortion, drumming and tremolo-picking and tend more towards Depressive Rock territory. That, of course, doesn't automatically render it bad by any means. It just places it apart from Depressive Black Metal. Woods of Desolation sits comfortably in the grey area between Depressive Black Metal and Depressive Rock. The playing style is akin to Metal, but the melodies and compositions are nowhere close to it. Tim Yatras clearly imports his drumming style from Austere, which makes it easy for any uninformed listener to confuse the band for Austere. The vocals have a slight similarity to Austere too, and so does the overall sound and playing style, placing both bands parallel to each other and hard to distinguish, and takes away the originality element from the band in question (since earlier demos had a different sound, whereas on this record, it sounds adapted from Austere's terminal studio album).
The songs have enough variations in terms of songwriting, which keeps the album from sounding like a clusterfuck of depressive riffs and screeched vocals. The band employs clean vocals and clean guitar sections. Especially in the songs Darker Days and Somehow.... The short instrumental, interlude-like track, November is probably the album's highlight. The band invokes a sense of melancholy in its own way, by not relying on the atmosphere, since it's nearly cancelled out by the energetic drumming, but with riff-work and vocals. The end product is mildly sorrowful music that does just enough justice to the lyrics.
Woods of Desolation's Torn Beyond Reason is strictly for fans of Austere. If you liked To Lay Like Old Ashes, you will certainly like this. People expecting cold, unsettling Depressive Black Metal, stay away.
7.5/10
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