Review & Track Premiere: Green Lung, Black Harvest

green lung black harvest

[Click play above to stream the premiere of ‘Reaper’s Scythe’ by Green Lung. Black Harvest is available to preorder here.]

Green Lung on “Reaper’s Scythe”:

Some key elements of ‘Reaper’s Scythe’ were actually written when we were putting together our first EP Free the Witch, but we couldn’t quite find a way to bring them together. Soon after Woodland Rites came out we were playing around in our studio and added a sinister intro and an epic King Diamond-esque middle 8, and suddenly it all clicked. It’s the first song we’ve written with that old school Maiden gallop, and horror fans will spot lots of references in the lyrics, from the familiar (Stephen King’s Children of the Corn) to the obscure (Thomas Tryon’s Harvest Home). It’s fast becoming our favourite song to play in the practice space. We can’t wait to unleash it live!

London’s Green Lung return on Oct. 22 with Black Harvest, their second full-length and label-debut for Svart Records. It is an especially pivotal moment for the UK five-piece, arriving after pandemic-delay as the follow-up to 2019’s Woodland Rites (review here), which was the finest debut album released that year, fueled by massive choruses and an underlying classicism of approach blending organ and guitar lines, thoughtful melodies and arrangements, and an on-the-beat vitality that spoke of the live experience even through the clarity and fullness of its studio presentation. Black Harvest, in that regard, does not attempt to fix the unbroken in Green Lung‘s approach.

The band — guitarist Scott Black, vocalist Tom Templar, bassist Joseph Ghast (who steps in following the departure of Andrew Cave), organist John Wright and drummer Matt Wiseman — continue in this crisp 10-song/43-minute collection their collaboration with Wayne Adams as producer, and the overarching presentation they concoct together builds on what they began to offer with 2018’s Free the Witch EP (review here), digging into various metals and heavier rocks such that Black‘s solo in “Leaders of the Blind” can soar like, suitably enough, Blind Guardian, even as Tom Templar‘s vocals find their way into a post-Sabbathian niche while feeding into the semi-cult, goth-tinged atmosphere and horror/folk-derived themes. An October release is only appropriate for a record of such rich, earthy hues and dappled light, and across two clearly delineated sides, Green Lung not only justify the hype that’s surrounded them since before their first record, but demonstrate their readiness to push themselves as songwriters and performers in order to best serve their songs.

Even on a record that boasts hooks like those of “Old Gods,” “Reaper’s Scythe,” “You Bear the Mark” and “Doomsayer” — see also: the rest — atmosphere plays a central role in Green Lung‘s craft. Each half of the LP begins with an intro, with the call-to-ritual “The Harrowing” jumping headfirst into organ-led theatrics at the outset met by side B’s foreboding chant in “Black Harvest,” which gives way to a momentary shred-fest surge before receding again into softer spaces ahead of “Upon the Altar.” This balance, between Black on guitar and Wright on organ, is crucial to Black Harvest and to Green Lung‘s execution of their songs overall. Within solidified structures of verses, choruses — have I mentioned the choruses yet? good — solos, etc., the back and forth dance between guitar and keys becomes a central defining factor no less than Templar‘s vocals.

That would seem to put Ghast and Wiseman in supporting roles on bass and drums, but the classic truth of heavy rock holds firm as “Old Gods” unfurls its first thuds, crashes, and thickened groove; heavy is born in the low end and the punctuation is its essence and its volume. “Old Gods” is a well-chosen post-intro opener — everything here is well-chosen, and the mix is gorgeous — and as the band builds Jerusalem on English ground, there’s boogie and momentum immediately on their side, the sing-along-ready hook just the first of more to come as “Leaders of the Blind,” “Reaper’s Scythe” and “Graveyard Sun” follow on the first half of Black Harvest, with the last of them seeming to acknowledge its own autumnal nature, in conversation with mid-period and later Type O Negative without trying to sound like that band or anything so much as itself, again adjusting that balance between guitar and organ to get there as it reaches toward 5:42, the longest cut on the record.

green lung (Photo by Ester Segarra Photography)

“Doomsayer” and “Born to a Dying World” likewise top five minutes, and like so much else throughout Black Harvest, that would seem to be by design in terms of their serving as a formidable closing pair, which they do. Before they get there, though, Green Lung answer the momentary shove of the title-track with “Upon the Altar,” a worthy companion-piece to “Old Gods” in theme and delivery alike, with a festival-ready payoff in its second half bringing on “You Bear the Mark” in one of several one-sided conversations with a lyrical “girl,” as in, “Girl, you bear the mark” or the “autumn girl” from “Graveyard Sun.” So be it.

Speedier than the song before it, “You Bear the Mark” is a beginning point for the outward journey the band make with their final tracks, a grounding that shifts into the longer-and-still-maddeningly-catchy “Doomsayer” and the broader-reaching “Born to a Dying World,” still memorable in both its burst of life and its quieter stretches, but making the conscious choice to pull back from trying to give a grand finale in its last moments as so many of Black Harvest‘s tracks have done to this point, instead letting its concluding minute-plus resolve in soft organ and vocal, folkish if not hymnal, raising the question if nature is the church, is there really a difference between the two? Given the largesse of “Doomsayer” — that stretch before it loops back around to the chorus — and, for that matter, any number of other stretches throughout, the decision to end atmospheric makes a bookend with how they started on “The Harrowing,” and that too would seem to be something of which Green Lung are cognizant.

Given that and the level of work they’ve done in the constructing and recording of this material, it’s hard to think of Black Harvest as anything other than masterful. It has a grandiose instrumental sensibility, to be sure, but still manages to offset that with its organic style and themes, and it engages the audience without capitulating to genre-based expectation, outdoing its predecessor while reaffirming the band’s strengths and forward potential to continue to develop these textures, atmospheres, and to toy with the balances at the core of their sound. From here, they wouldn’t be any more out of place in acoustic-based English folk than in full-on traditional doom riffing or psychedelic expanse. That they’ve chosen most to embody an aesthetic of their own, born of familiar elements and shaped as they will it, is perhaps an even greater strength than their songwriting. It has helped make Black Harvest one of 2021’s finest releases.

Green Lung, Black Harvest (2021)

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2 Responses to “Review & Track Premiere: Green Lung, Black Harvest

  1. Kenny Lee Jr. says:

    I’m beyond stoked for this album! Leaders of the Blind and Reaper’s Scythe are both awesome.

  2. Sarah Kirk says:

    Not surprising to hear that Green Lung have absolutely smashed it out of the park and into the stratosphere again with this second album – the two tracks released so far are epic. Excited for the album, extra-excited to see them live for the second time soon. Fab!

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