Into The Woods

Norway has always been the most fertile of lands for experimental and avant-garde Metal. During the last three decades fabulous visionaries have pushed beyond boundaries time and time again, propagating the ever-healthy Metal underground and its myriad sub-genres. The most prestigious and mythical of all are the legendary In The Woods… the originators of truly progressive Dark Metal. Now, 21 years after their singular, beyond-classic debut "Heart Of The Ages" and 17 protracted years after last full-length "Strange In Stereo", a reimagined and revitalised In The Woods… deliver "Pure" - a stunningly focussed new record - a distillation of everything that makes them one of the greats…

After the long hiatus of almost 15 years and then the strepitous return in 2016 with the magnificient album Pure, now the Norwegian legends In The Woods…, one of the first bands who used the name "pagan metal" to describe their music, is back with their fifth full-lenght named Cease The Day. Even though that it's difficult to talk about the same band anymore, because now, after the departure of Botteri brothers, the only member from the original line-up is the drummer Anders Kobro. Together with James Fogarty aka Mr. Fog (vocals, guitars, bass and keys), who is now beside Kobro the only regular member since the Pure album, the two with the help of guitarists Bernt Sørensen and Kåre Sletteberg, created an album that, huh, has it's memorable moments…

As hinted at on Omnio, Norway's In The Woods has taken yet another step away from metal. First, they have broken with black metal entirely, and secondly, they have perhaps left the genre altogether in order to create a dark, swirling, heavy rock music all their own. Utilizing many of the same tactics they pioneered on Omnio, such as the use of a full string quartet alongside the band, In the Woods have taken further liberties in their instrumentation: sitars, gongs, drum loops, and keyboard programming, as well as a pedal steel guitar have been incorporated into their sound. On paper it sounds dreadful, in the grooves it is positively seductive and powerful…

Marc-André presents a fascinating juxtaposition of two composers who are not obviously musically related, but who are proved on this album to be a felicitous combination. Schumann’s well-loved Kinderszenen (‘Scenes from childhood’) cycle is a masterpiece: each piece is as deftly and exquisitely crafted as anything in his more outwardly sophisticated mode. From the haunting beauty of the opening ‘From foreign lands and people’ (‘Von fremden Ländern und Menschen’), via the spare eloquence of the central ‘Dreaming’ (‘Träumerei’), to the quiet rhetoric of ‘The poet speaks’ (‘Der Dichter spricht’), the listener is taken through nuances of emotion whose effects are heartrendingly poignant.

This album perfectly showcases the Queens monolithic rock in a "warts and all" style befitting of the band and representing their ferocious liveshow fully and accurately. Even if you've never set eyes on him before, you can tell just by listening to this album that QOTSA's giant frontman Josh Homme is an imposing onstage presence as he rips through classics old and new - pausing just long enough to straighten his immaculate ginger quiff (or in one rather humourous case, to publicly humiliate an audience member for "throwing stuff" at him) before ripping into the next slab of rhythm and riffage.

The Beatles was an American animated television series featuring the fanciful and musical misadventures of the popular British rock band of the same name. It ran from 1965 to 1969 on ABC in the USA (only 1965 to 1967 was first run; later transmissions were reruns). The series debuted on September 25, 1965 and ended on September 7, 1969. A total of 39 episodes were produced. The series was shown on Saturday mornings at 10:30 AM until the fall of 1968, when it was moved to Sunday mornings. Each episode has a name of a Beatles song, so the story is based on its lyrics and it is also played at some time in the episode.