{"id":24720,"date":"2015-03-04T00:01:06","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T00:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=24720"},"modified":"2015-03-04T21:21:36","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T21:21:36","slug":"album-review-garden-of-worm-idle-stones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-garden-of-worm-idle-stones\/","title":{"rendered":"GARDEN OF WORM – Idle Stones (2015) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

GARDEN OF WORM
Idle Stones<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSvart (2015)<\/span>
Rating: 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The enigmatic Garden Of Worm is a Finnish trio named after a song by King Crimson. Idle Stones<\/em> is the second full-length by messrs S.J. Harju (vocals, bass), E.J. Taipale (vocals, guitars) and J.M. Suvanto (drums) \u2013 emerging five years after the 2010 self-titled debut \u2013 but the guys most certainly haven\u2019t been as idle as the title suggests.<\/p>\n

In-between the two full-length releases there has been an EP and previous to these releases another brace of mini-projects entitled Fresh Maggots<\/em> (2006) and Summer\u2019s Isle<\/em> (2008), but from what snippets I\u2019ve heard of the band previously, this current incarnation is a different beast altogether. <\/p>\n

To put it as simply as possible, Garden Of Worms plays a rather laid-back style of doomy metal, but it\u2019s neither weighty nor morose enough to cause misery. If anything, this is very much hinting at progressive psychedelia and it\u2019s a composition awash with subtlety and mellow passages. Nowadays, it seems that anything remotely antiquarian can be deemed \u201cdoom\u201d or \u201cstoner\u201d, but Idle Stones<\/em> is neither. <\/p>\n

Vocally, there is a wistful serenity to Harju\u2019s tone, and they work well in an almost bewitching tandem with Taipale\u2019s exquisite croon. All the while the music sort of floats without any real menace, almost too deft to chug and only occasionally hinting at suspense \u2013 the perfect example of this design being exhibited on \u2018Summer\u2019s Isle\u2019, where the guitar basically traipses in basic heavy rock fashion while the bass is equally stark. However, this isn\u2019t a depressive expression and I agree with the press release which speaks of \u201cwarmness\u201d in the structures as well as a sprig of spontaneity as the instruments flirt with one another to suggest a band happily jamming along. <\/p>\n

The opus only offers four tracks, but three of these are lengthy. Opener \u2018Fleeting Are The Days Of Man\u2019 \u2013 which is the shortest of the four \u2013 is a simple, nodding and very much earthy groove of stripped back hard rock. I guess it would be fair to say that there\u2019s a 70s feel to the starkness, and because there is such a free nature about each track as it develops it\u2019s only natural that some may draw comparisons with German rock band Amon D\u00fc\u00fcl.<\/p>\n

With \u2018Desertshore\u2019, there is again that relaxed, almost poetic feel to the music; the bass, drum and guitar simply shifting slowly like a camera panning across some slightly greying pasture. As I\u2019ve stated before though, due to the stripped back nature, there\u2019s no real suggestion of enveloping doom but instead each track unfolds as a trickle of instrumentation. <\/p>\n

Even as \u2018Desertshore\u2019 evolves and the vocals become a tad more wild and the guitars and percussion build, it\u2019s still not comparable to anything remotely doom and so as closer \u2018The Sleeper Including Being Is More Than Life\u2019 rolls out like a 20-minute soundtrack to rural sleepiness, I\u2019m a touch unaffected by the general tone of it all. For a track to be so long I anticipated a few more kaleidoscopic ingredients to be thrown into the pot, but again we have that spontaneous \u201cjam\u201d feel where the drums take on a brisk spark to cavort with the bluesy guitar fizz. <\/p>\n

Idle Stones<\/em> is not going to be the liveliest album you\u2019re going to clamp your ears on this year. I just wish there were a few more attempts within at the psychedelia, because as it stands it\u2019s a record that is just a touch to sleepy for my liking.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GARDEN OF WORMIdle Stones Svart (2015)Rating: 6.5\/10 The enigmatic Garden Of Worm is a Finnish trio named after a song by King Crimson. Idle Stones is the second full-length by messrs S.J. Harju (vocals, bass), E.J. Taipale (vocals, guitars) and J.M. Suvanto (drums) \u2013 emerging five years after the 2010 self-titled debut \u2013 but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1698],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-garden-of-worm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24720"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24724,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24720\/revisions\/24724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}