Review: In the Woods… – Otra

Style: Gothic metal, progressive metal (mixed vocals)
FFO: Green Carnation, Ulver, Borknagar, Amorphis
Country: Norway
Release date: 11 April 2025

In the Woods… have been in those woods for such a long time, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they may have gotten lost out there. Various incarnations of this Norwegian gothic metal outfit have come and gone since their formation in 1991. Born of the same womb as the great Green Carnation¹, the two bifurcated sometime after their birth (I’m pretty sure that’s not how biology works, but cut me some slack; I’m not that kind of woman in STEM), with members going their separate ways as two distinct projects. Each band went on to develop coherent but distinct sounds, both foundational to the development of gothic metal in Norway. After numerous personnel changes, genre shifts, a fourteen year hiatus, and seven albums, In the Woods… on Otra are not the same band that they used to be, neither in membership—only drummer Anders Kobro remains from the original lineup—nor sound. 

These days, In the Woods… offer up a somewhat mellower iteration on their blackened doom-metal roots, and bear comparison with a host of other bands: there’s a fair bit of Green Carnation-ish melodicism and emotional poignancy even in the instrumental deliveries; some Borknagar-ian blackened explosivity; and warmly inviting poppy Ulver-esque tones. Though I may be running out of suffixes to adject-ify band names, In the Woods… are far from running out of inspiration, with cohesive songwriting that draws freshness from their various influences without needing to reinvent the wheel.

While opening track “The Things You Shouldn’t Know” establishes the playbook for Otra, sprawling over eight minutes with cavernous, melancholy riffing and a deft display of vocalist Bernt Fjellestad’s versatility, it’s the following track “A Misrepresentation of I” where these elements start to synergize to their full potential. With an uptick in tempo, shades of Amorphis peek through, and the vocal harmonies in the pre-chorus at 3:40 are delectable. My one quibble with the track—and I apologize if you are one of those who normally ignore lyrics and I’m now ruining this for you, but misery loves company—is that nobody noticed the missing syllable in the word “misrepresentation”, either while writing, or the six times that Fjellestad repeats it during the song.

Mispronunciations aside, Fjellestad’s vocal performance is dynamic and versatile. His growls roil with a bubbling bog-monster potency evocative of Amorphis’ Tomi Joutsen (see the punchy, syncopated growls at 2:10 in “The Crimson Crown”), while he slides effortlessly across a honeyed clean vocal range, especially satisfying in the upper register (2:16 in “Come Ye Sinners”). Best of all, the balance and interplay of these elements seems to be fine-tuned from 2022’s Diversum; here, harsh and melodic passages interweave mostly seamlessly, with the exception of “The Kiss and the Lie”, which struggles with a more jarring vicissitude. 

Indeed, Otra is the band’s second album with their current lineup, and this comparative stability bears fruit across the board: the whole instrumental package is smooth. One might expect a heavy, crushing sound from dual guitarists André Sletteberg and Bernt Sørensen. But they instead inhabit a more chambered and timeless sonic space, a hall of mirrors echoing with riffs that ripple and reflect rather than pummeling, evoking more rock than metal with a light hand on the distortion. They also have a bit of a penchant for power chords; whether sweeping under the scorching growls in “The Kiss and the Lie” or more subtly in “The Crimson Crown”, these harshen the edges and lend a sense of foreboding to the musical landscape.

To my ears, the style of songwriting that In the Woods… have cultivated since their reunion is one with a high floor and a relatively low ceiling. That’s not to say that Otra doesn’t have its flowing peaks, but more so that the band takes only calculated risks, making for music that’s easy to like and somewhat harder to love. Fans of original In the Woods… may miss their truly avant-garde bent, but modest variations on the playbook like the delicate pop-Ulver stylings in the intro of “Let Me Sing” or the rock ‘n’ roll groove of “Come Ye Sinners” variegate the palette without colouring too far outside the lines.

Otra’s sepia-soaked cover depicts the river in Norway for which the album is named. The scene is melancholy, vivid despite the lack of colour, and timeless; all qualities that permeate the album’s forty-six minutes. Thirty-four years after first setting out, In the Woods… may never fully return to where they began, but somewhere out in those perennial woods, they’ve learned how to dwell in the introspective melancholia of the spaces between then and now.

Recommended tracks: A Misrepresentation of I, Let Me Sing, Come Ye Sinners

You may also like: Novembre, Throes of Dawn, Octoploid, Barren Earth

Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Prophecy Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

In the Woods… is:

– Bernt Fjellestad (vocals)
– Anders Kobro (drums, percussion)
– André Sletteberg (guitar)
– Bernt Sørensen (guitar)
– Nils Olav Drivdal (bass)

1.  Whom I have also had the privilege of reviewing for this website ↩︎