The Old Dead Tree - Second Thoughts

Angry Metal Guy 70

The hibernal cool-down of December brings with it the urge to succumb to an early setting sun and frozen morning air.¹ And with this desire for thick socks, fuzzy blankets, and warm, spiced beverages no matter the hour comes a call from the gothic and downtrodden. In both those words The Old Dead Tree lives, having waved the dark and morose flag since 1997 inconsistently through a minefield of break-ups and hiatuses. In fact, their 2019 EP The End—also a tribute to one of their founding members, Frédéric Guillemot, whose life came to a tragic end before The Old Dead Tree could grow—stood as an alleged conclusion to their idiosyncratic, sorrowful career. But a tree cannot stop growing just because it wants to, even if it’s old and dead.

Ambition overtook hesitance to allow Second Thoughts to be not a second wind but a rebirth for the French sadbois. While the lyrics still deal with subject matter like personal loss, mental struggles, and an unavoidable malaise for life, a thread of adventure colors the journey with footstep recordings, heavy breathing, clock tower gongs, scattering dog barks, and distant lightning, laying a pleasant, engrossing mulch world around The Old Dead Tree. This living soundscape against founding vocalist Manuel Munoz’s vibrant, weeping crack and croon builds a narrative that doesn’t need to be on the page in front of you to dive straight into your heart. And as The Old Dead Tree cycles through timeless, pathos-drenched passages like the alt-y, breathy yodel of “Better Off Dead” or the sudden mic-distorted, volume-loaded cry that opens “Story of My Life,” it is clear that the dramatic urgency that defined the draw of their past works hasn’t skipped a beat.

Second Thoughts by The Old Dead Tree

More than a reliving of The Old Dead Tree’s past, Second Thoughts appears with plenty of new wrinkles that anchor important energy shifts. In a move informed by his time with melodic death/folkers Arkan, Munoz has brought on a few friends² to lend tension-building barks to driving stomps and snarling diffusions (“Without a Second Thought,” “OK,” “The Worse Is Yet to Come”). And though that more aggressive harsh vocal stomp serves both thematic contrast and tonal divergence, long-time guitarist Nicolas Chevrollier maintains a twangy, petulant six-string strut that paints the bluesy waltz of Wovenhand in a light equally gothic but triumphantly troubled (“Don’t Waste Your Time,” “OK”). The diversity throughout makes for little downtime across Second Thoughts’ fifty-minute journey.

Despite its excursions into those more novel and often proggier territories, The Old Dead Tree keeps a firm footing in the established goth playbook for several cuts. The tremolo chord overlay that opens Second Thoughts, along with plenty of other wistful riffs, give hits of late ’90s Katatonia/Anathema guitar-forward melancholy that paints a frown long before any words can (“The Lightest Straw,” “Luke”). “Fresh Start,” on the other hand, leads with reverberating piano hits that morph into a throbbing bassline that swells with the mopey dance floor energy of One Second era Paradise Lost—you can take the Docs off the goth, but you can’t truly escape the urge to drag around a good beat. To class up some of the more rote and melodramatic musical conclusions that build with “The Trap” and “Solstalgia,” Second Thoughts invites the gifted cellist Raphaël Verguin (Psygnosis) to lay sullen lines against Chevrollier’s classically mournful melodies. All of this leads to a finale that too feels of the Paradise Lost playbook, albeit more of the lingering Mackintosh guitar wail, but Munoz’s ability to hold a comfortable yet discomforting tune keeps its roots firmly in The Old Dead Tree.

As a true return to the fray, The Old Dead Tree’s updated take on a well-tread but not widespread sound feels as fresh as it does nostalgic. Like a cozy blanket on a shiver-inducing night, Second Thoughts wraps the listener in a believable tale of emotional turbulence and life-informed loss. For those enamored enough by its scattershot, moody shuffle, the highest points of histrionics will hit that deep-seated sadboi within. It’s hard to say whether that same approach lands as a true boon, as some of the lesser moments feel unnecessary on repeat listens. But this sort of episodic narrative also means that you can pick up Second Thoughts from just about any point and let its gothy charms take over.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist | Bandcamp
Websites: theolddeadtree.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/theolddeadtree.official
Releases Worldwide: December 6th, 2024

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