AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEAD FIELDS OF WOOLWICH — “I’VE MADE IT TO HELL”

We’re told that Dead Fields Of Woolwich had its beginnings in the Autumn of 2020 in North Bay, Ontario when multi-instrumentalist Kye Bell (Within Nostalgia) created a project inspired by a love of bands like Type O Negative, Paradise Lost, and Wood Of Ypres. The band’s name was inspired by the place where he grew up in southern Ontario, a place that left memories of “of old fields, scarecrows, and dense woods of twisted trees”.

Although still considered a solo project at heart, the band’s forthcoming self-titled album includes the performances of session vocalist Alyssa Broere (Within Nostalgia, ex-Astral Witch), and you’ll see from our video premiere today that Alyssa plays a vital role in the album’s captivating rendering of gothic melodic doom.

The name of the song featured in the video is “I’ve Made It to Hell“, and it’s the one that closes the album. Kye explains that he chose it to showcase as the single for the album “because it has a great dirgy riff until it hits a catchy chorus”. Lyrically, it “deals with the idea of transitioning to the afterlife and being stuck there”.

The dire and desolate nature of the lyrical subject matter comes through in the agonized whine and moan of the opening riffs and the song’s beleaguered trudging cadence, and a union of shimmering keys and high tremolo’d guitar add a feeling of heartbreak and hopelessness. That contrast between heavy, staggering sounds and ethereal tones sets a big, haunting hook, and paves the way for Alyssa‘s soaring voice, which is both beautiful and stricken.

Jolting chugs and booming drums will get heads moving as the vocals crackle with passion way up in the stratosphere, and near the end the music receives a surge of energy, through a rapid riff-pulse and bombastic percussion, as a prelude to a blazing finale in which all the song’s ingredients, including Alyssa‘s intense, spine-tingling voice, unite in a display of tragic magnificence. (You’ll probably find by then that the song has also gotten well and truly stuck in your head.)

We’ll add these words about the record from Kye Bell:

“I always try to keep to love of gothic culture interweaved within all my songs giving the listener a feeling of something haunting and heavy. Hopefully, this record will be received with praise and excitement! It’s been very fulfilling to create an album that is truly my own and I hope people will like the gothic elements fused with the heavy doom. As a whole, the album deals with a lot of darker topics like acceptance of death and personal struggles from within but also touches on dark romanticism and twisted love all while trudging along with heaviness and memorable hooks.”

Dead Fields Of Woolwich (the album) will be released on July 28th. It was produced, mixed, and mastered by David Strba (Chainsaw Media) and features cover art by James Hutton. It’s recommended for fans of the afore-mentioned Paradise Lost, Type O Negative, and Woods Of Ypres, as well as A Pale Horse Named Death and Katatonia.

MORE INFO AVAILABLE HERE:
https://www.facebook.com/DeadFieldsOfWoolwich
https://www.instagram.com/deadfieldsofwoolwich
https://deadfieldsofwoolwich.bandcamp.com/