Green Lung – Black Harvest

Anyone who had the misfortune of talking to me in 2019 has heard about Green Lung at least once. I accidentally came across their first full-length album, “Woodland Rites”, and it blew me away. It is still amongst my favorites, so their new release, “Black Harvest”, had a lot to match up to. I was prepared for either “Woodland Rites II” or a downgrade, but thankfully my pessimistic predictions didn’t come true.

Little side note before the review: I absolutely love it when bands put effort into their overall aesthetic and Green Lung is a great example of that. I still can’t get over how gorgeous the previous album’s cover art is, also the merch AND the Bandcamp page design. It just gives that extra magic touch to the music and ties everything together. All that was done by Richard Wells, whom, unsurprisingly, the band trusted once again with the art for “Black Harvest”.

While their previous record was more chill and brought along feelings of isolation and primal connection with nature – gathering with the girls in the woods for the weekly pagan ritual, rejecting modern life, you know the vibe, “Black Harvest” is more “civilized”. It is still mostly based on pagan beliefs, folk tales and horror movie references, but seemingly in a more social setting, like a small medieval town.

It all begins when the immediately recognizable and interesting vocals invite us to ‘The Harrowing’.

From the first track, I could feel that Green Lung has taken their instrumental work up a notch. It’s more dynamic, has a stronger percussion presence and more experimentation with the organ. The beautiful harmonized guitar that made me fall in love the first time is back and the riffs are even more memorable. ‘Doomsayer’ is a great example of that.

The first single of the album is ‘Leaders of the blind’, a groovy way of saying ‘wake up people’. The video for it is quite intense (epilepsy warning):

Green Lung – Leaders of the Blind (click here if the video doesn’t play)

Up next comes ‘Reaper’s Scythe’, my personal favorite. Everything about this track is so good – the intro, the energy, the references and those high notes! I can already imagine being in the crowd and screaming along with the lyrics.

Green Lung – Reaper’s Scythe (click here if the video doesn’t play)

As a third single, we have the melodic ‘Graveyard sun’, which reminds me a lot of ‘May Queen’. The beautiful autumn scenery that I was imagining during my first listening has nothing to do with the fun mockumentary-style video:

Green Lung – Graveyard Sun (click here if the video doesn’t play)

Then after the haunting ‘Black harvest’ marks the beginning of the B side of the album, we come to the fourth and last single, ‘Upon the altar’. I couldn’t see the video for this one because fuck giving Google personal info for age verification, but I assume it’s good, check it out for yourself:

Green Lung – Upon the Alter (click here if the video doesn’t play)

I can ramble all day long about Green Lung and every little detail I spotted in their outstanding and fresh music, but I like to keep my reviews as short and sweet as possible. You have to check them out yourself. Do it. Join the cult. Join us.

Tracklist:

1. The Harrowing
2. Old Gods
3. Leaders of the Blind
4. Reaper’s Scythe
5. Graveyard Sun
6. Black Harvest
7. Upon the Altar
8. You Bear the Mark
9. Doomsayer
10. Born to a Dying World