It takes a special kind of bad to literally be the worst album I've ever listened to. What makes this album so awful? It's the mere fact that Woods of Ypres don't seem to realize just how pitifully dreadful they are that makes this album absolutely unbearable to listen to. What's more surprising is that even a lot of well-versed metalheads don't seem to realize how awful they are, and eat this shit up like it's a rare commodity. To be fair though, music this bad IS a rare commodity. Perhaps it's the hilarity that keeps people coming back for more, but the reason I cannot enjoy an album like this for the hilarity is because of how seriously Woods of Ypres take themselves.
Where the actual instrumentation here is somewhat competent, the sheer self-indulgence and unforgivably bad lyrics (to the point where it is unbelievable) completely slaughter this album from the get-go. From the very first track Shards of Love (Hurt Forever), the mind-numbingly simplistic and shallow lyrics take the spotlight as the painfully generic clean guitars plod a few simple chords before the song becomes a generic doom "ballad" that has no real emotive power due to how childish and amateurish this song is put together. This is but an omen of what is to come, because not only does everything get one hundred times worse, they also get one hundred times more obnoxious to the point where it's just completely unavoidable and nothing can be salvaged from this absolute wreck.
Some self-indulgence when it comes to music is fine, but to the point where you've managed to make a 78 minute album of teenage poetry and bland instrumentation is completely unforgivable. Some of the tracks literally hurt to sit through, like the song Wet Leather with the most hilariously badly written lyrics ever conceived ("Life is just pain and piss, it's nothing that I will miss, life is just pain and piss, it's just... temporary"). This is now an inside joke between me and my friends. Really though, if I was to pick out all the individual ridiculous lyrics you'd probably decompose before being able to finish reading. It gets to the point towards the end of the album where the lyrics just make nearly no sense ("Women move on, Men move one, Women move on, Men move one" and so it goes) and just leave me in a state of confusion and exhaustion.
Any redeemable moment here is overshadowed by the fact that someone else has done it 10 times better. This would be okay, even somewhat enjoyable if it wasn't for everything else that makes this album a disaster. But when everything comes together as it goes in The Green Album, I don't think anyone does it worse than Woods of Ypres. The formula of getting instrumentation I should really enjoy and smothering it in a helping of the worst lyrics I've ever heard, delivered by a vocalist that is somehow able to sing all this with a straight face just absolutely makes this an embarrassment to everything I love about music. It's like someone took a picture of a band I really enjoy and photoshopped Justin Bieber into it, in musical form, which makes it feel like the album is slapping me in the face as I listen to it. It's so difficult to critically evaluate this album due to how juvenile it is, it's essentially like trying to mark a child's finger-painting by college standards. I could go into picking apart every individual aspect of this album but it would all be for nothing.
The Green Album is truly a marvel in itself - turning something that should be boring at the absolute worst and turning it into something that is literally impossible to listen to. I'd tell you to avoid this, but this album is intriguing in itself for the same reason the cult classic The Room by Tommy Wiseau is so elusive and infamous - it's truly an experience that no one could ever explain to you in a review, and where it is without a doubt the worst album I've ever listened to, there's just absolutely nothing quite like this.
But for those looking for a good album, avoid at any cost you can.
