Today marks the release date of Finnish doom rockers Garden of Worm‘s second album, Idle Stones, on Svart. It’s a record that, following half a decade after their 2010 self-titled debut (review here), has already been reviewed here more or less twice (see here and here), so I’ll spare the verbiage this time around and say instead how fortunate I feel to be able to host the stream, because I genuinely think it’s a record that represents something special within its four tracks.

Not just that Garden of Worm have grown since their last time out, but from the initial downer-shuffle of “Fleeting are the Days of Man” through the twists of “Desertshore” and on into the expansive jamming in the 19-minute closer “The Sleeper Including Being is More than Life,” it crosses genre borders so easily as to make the listener forget they existed in the first place, or more, to doubt they ever did.

Easy to mark that out as hyperbole, maybe, but I think Garden of Worm‘s sophomore outing lives up to it. When I streamed “Summer’s Isle Including Caravan,” I said something similar, and remarked on how fluid the material was across the board and how natural the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist EJ Taipale, bassist/vocalist SJ Harju and drummer JM Suvanto sounded moving between parts and showcasing varied sides of their influences.

I stand by all of it, of course, and it’s a big part of the reason why after hosting one track I’m so pleased to be able to follow-up with the album in its entirety. It deserves to be heard front to back, to have each shift experienced in its most proper surroundings, the context of Idle Stones as a whole. I don’t usually do this kind of thing, and if one might think of it as an exception to the rule, consider it also an exceptional album.

And of course, please enjoy:

Garden of Worm‘s Idle Stones is out today, March 6, on Svart Records. The release show is tonight in the band’s native Tampere. More info at the links.

Garden of Worm on Thee Facebooks

Release show event page

Idle Stones at Svart Records

Svart Records on Thee Facebooks

 

Tags: Finland, Garden of Worm, Garden of Worm Idle Stones, Idle Stones, Svart Records, Tampere

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2015 at 10:30 am and is filed under audiObelisk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.