As the Stars

Outstanding limited digipack reissue by Season of Mist, featuring a revamped artwork and an 8-page booklet, for “As the Stars”, the third full-length album by Australian act Woods of Desolation, a record that marks a clear turning point in their trajectory by expanding their emotional universe into more open, contemplative and melodic territories, without ever abandoning the melancholic essence that defines the project. Originally released in 2014, this album refines the band’s earlier, more depressive-driven approach into a greater sense of breadth, with guitars unfolding in long, enveloping passages, tempos breathing more freely and atmospheres taking on an almost oneiric character, evoking solitude, distance and a luminous melancholy that stands in contrast to the emotional rawness of “Torn Beyond Reason”. Here the dramatic weight remains, but it is expressed in a more introspective and elegant manner, shaping a deeply emotive and expansive album that showcases the project’s compositional maturity and its ability to transform pain into suspended beauty, an essential work for understanding the natural and coherent evolution of Woods of Desolation.