RSS Feed


GARDEN OF WORM
Idle 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) – emerging five years after the 2010 self-titled debut – but the guys most certainly haven’t been as idle as the title suggests.

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 (2006) and Summer’s Isle (2008), but from what snippets I’ve heard of the band previously, this current incarnation is a different beast altogether.

To put it as simply as possible, Garden Of Worms plays a rather laid-back style of doomy metal, but it’s neither weighty nor morose enough to cause misery. If anything, this is very much hinting at progressive psychedelia and it’s a composition awash with subtlety and mellow passages. Nowadays, it seems that anything remotely antiquarian can be deemed “doom” or “stoner”, but Idle Stones is neither.

Vocally, there is a wistful serenity to Harju’s tone, and they work well in an almost bewitching tandem with Taipale’s 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 – the perfect example of this design being exhibited on ‘Summer’s Isle’, where the guitar basically traipses in basic heavy rock fashion while the bass is equally stark. However, this isn’t a depressive expression and I agree with the press release which speaks of “warmness” in the structures as well as a sprig of spontaneity as the instruments flirt with one another to suggest a band happily jamming along.

The opus only offers four tracks, but three of these are lengthy. Opener ‘Fleeting Are The Days Of Man’ – which is the shortest of the four – is a simple, nodding and very much earthy groove of stripped back hard rock. I guess it would be fair to say that there’s a 70s feel to the starkness, and because there is such a free nature about each track as it develops it’s only natural that some may draw comparisons with German rock band Amon Düül.

With ‘Desertshore’, 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’ve stated before though, due to the stripped back nature, there’s no real suggestion of enveloping doom but instead each track unfolds as a trickle of instrumentation.

Even as ‘Desertshore’ evolves and the vocals become a tad more wild and the guitars and percussion build, it’s still not comparable to anything remotely doom and so as closer ‘The Sleeper Including Being Is More Than Life’ rolls out like a 20-minute soundtrack to rural sleepiness, I’m 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 “jam” feel where the drums take on a brisk spark to cavort with the bluesy guitar fizz.

Idle Stones is not going to be the liveliest album you’re 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’s a record that is just a touch to sleepy for my liking.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share