“HEART OF GOLD”: THE WOODS OF YPRES TRIBUTE ALBUM HITS OUR FRACTURED RADAR SCREEN

On December 22, 2011, David Gold died in an automobile collision near Barrie, Ontario, at the age of 31. With his death, so died Woods of Ypres — the doom/black metal band that he co-founded and of which he was the sole consistent member over the course of five albums and assorted other releases. But of course the music of Woods lives on in the lives of the band’s passionate fanbase.

Given my own tastes in metal, I was never a die-hard follower of Woods, though I did appreciate the music, I was really high on certain songs, and I certainly understand why the band had such a powerful effect on many listeners. And I wasn’t surprised to learn earlier this year that a musical tribute to David Gold and to Woods was being planned under the title Heart of Gold. I’ve been casually (and irregularly) monitoring the project’s progress, and so, for example, I saw today that the project’s organizer, Steph LeDrew, had unveiled the very cool album cover that you can see above, created by artist Jason Hicks.

But what really put this album on my personal radar screen was the recent discovery that Sweden’s Canopy has contributed a cover of “Falling Apart”, which was one of two tracks that appeared on the Home 7″ single released in 2011. Long-time readers of NCS know that we’re huge fans of Canopy, and we’ve been starved for new music from the band since the release of Menhir (their third album) in 2010. Now we’ll have something to tide us over until the band finish work on their next album (which is in progress).

No specific release date for Heart of Gold has been set yet; Steph LeDrew says it should be ready by August or September. To keep track of developments, visit the Heart of Gold Facebook page at this location. Here’s the current track list:

Novembers Doom- Wet Leather
Gypsy Chief Goliath-Suicide Cargoload
Eclipse Eternal-Crossing the 45th parallel
Empyrean Plague- Shedding the deadwood
Panzerfasust- A meeting place and time
Pagain Ritual-The shams of Optimisim
Amaranth- Allure of the earth
Albireon-Retrosleep in the morning calm
Anemic-The Sun was in my eyes part Doom
Begotten-The Sea of Imeasureable loss
Reliquis-Career Suicide
Rae and Joel-Silver
Canopy-Falling Apart
Unbowed-Your ontario town is a burial ground
Deathmarch-Northern Cold
Kuhrzoth-Finality
The Gov’ and Friends- Intro: The looming of dust in the dark
The Bear Hunters- Thrill of the Struggle
Svarte Krake- You were the light
Justin Bender of Into Eternity- Trillium:The 3rd of Three winters

Canopy’s Facebook page is here.

To finish off this post, it seems appropriate to stream two tracks — the original Woods of Ypres song “Falling Apart”, which is available for purchase on Bandcamp via this link, and a song from Canopy’s last album (which you can stream in its entirety and purchase on Bandcamp via this link). “Falling Apart” is a heavy motherfucker of a song (one of those Woods songs I’m high on), and I’m stoked about hearing Canopy’s take on it.