Back in business for In the Woods….
In 2025, Anders Kobro (drums, Old Forest, ex-Carpathian Forest, ex-Blood Red Throne, ex-Green Carnation), Nils Drivdal (bass, Drival), Kåre André Sletteberg (guitar, Kas), Bernt Sørensen (guitar, Mental Disaster) and Bernt Fjellestad (vocals, ex-Guardians of Time, ex-Susperia) renew their partnership with Soulseller Records for the release of their seventh album, Otra.
The Things You Shouldn’t Know kicks off this new album with a melancholic clean sound, but saturation fires up the mix, which retains its soothing, airy touch. Although clean vocals are in the majority, for a while they change to screams, which also fit in well with the more furious riffs, before returning to the tranquility of A Misrepresentation of I and its catchy tones, which contrast with the saturated vocals, but which meet the intense flights of fancy of the vocalist. There are more Doom-oriented touches when the backing vocals appear, as on The Crimson Crown, which has a very soaring sound that eventually becomes more imposing on the choruses, but also some rather majestic elements, especially in keyboards. The vocal diversity allows the track to adopt several approaches before giving way to The Kiss and the Lie, where the rhythm accompanies our wandering to the more virulent passages with rather dark tones, sometimes even borrowing from Black Metal. The piercing leads bring a different kind of depth before we meet the haunting Let Me Sing and its rather heavy atmosphere, which is offset by a playful touch in the vocals, creating a fairly accessible march to Come Ye Sinners, where the good mood disappears. If the piano of the introduction is gentle enough, the rhythmic pattern becomes much more menacing, even retaining an almost aggressive aura during the massive moments when clean vocals return, also leading the way on The Wandering Deity and its restful gentleness, which regularly encounters more striking moments, as if to close the album and let the sound gradually disappear.
Although musical experimentation is second nature to In the Woods…, the band perfectly knows how to make its sounds coherent, sometimes melodious and sometimes much more aggressive on Otra. The band is at the peak of its second life.
90/100