Crate Diggers Gold: Green Lung – Woodland Rites

Nothing beats finding an LP on your wishlist. I recently found Green Lung’s Woodland Rites (2019) while browsing at my favorite record store (Minneapolis’ Electric Fetus). A bonus was finding the British folk horror classic during the Fetus’ Halloween sale (20% off) – cosmic!

From my best of 2019 blog post:

“One of the best things I have done on Instagram has been to follow hashtags – I have discovered so many cool things from that.  The album cover for Green Lung’s Woodland Rites showed up in my Instagram feed and it caught my attention. I decided to give it a listen and instantly loved it. It reminded me of Ozzy-era Black Sabbath.  Physical versions are hard to obtain (there is not a domestic release), but it is available on streaming services.”

I have been looking for a vinyl copy since then. I recently found a copy at the Electric Fetus in the new LP Metal section (not my normal section, but I have seen other Green Lung titles there in the past). I didn’t exactly stumble upon the album, as almost every time I go to a record store, I look for this record (and Soft Machine Bundles). I could have ordered it from the band, but that would have meant ordering it from England (currency conversions, expensive shipping, etc.). I assumed, given the buzz the band was getting, it would eventually show up in U.S. record stores. I refuse to use Discogs, eBay, etc., as I prefer to find my crate digger’s gold in the wild.

Green Lung is a British stoner/doom metal band formed in 2017 in London. The band’s first signing was with German independent label Kosmic Artifactz, with whom they released their first EP, Free the Witch, in 2018, and then their first LP, Woodland Rites, in March 2019 (I would love to find a Kosmic Artifactz version of Woodland Rites – there is one copy on Discogs at the moment for $230!). They then signed with Finnish doom metal label Svart Records in 2020, releasing Black Harvest in October 2021. The band eventually signed with Nuclear Blast Records in July 2022, who reissued Free the Witch and Woodland Rites.

Googling, I learned that Green Lung is a kind of big deal in the UK’s metal, stoner, and doom scenes (whatever the hell that means). They have headlined UK metal festivals and have grown to fill 1500 capacity rooms (the equivalent of First Avenue here in Minneapolis).

I am not much of a contemporary metal guy, but I do love what we called heavy metal/hard rock back in the ’70s. Green Lung evokes the bands from that era (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest). They sound like a lost band from that era.

Lyrically, the album explores British folk horror and pagan/occult spirituality—complete nonsense, but the perfect pairing with the heavy metal music. This is tricky territory; it worked for Sabbath and Zeppelin, but it comes off as cringy when Gretta Van Fleet does it. Somehow Green Lung threads the needle.

I love their woodcut UK folklore iconography on Woodland Rites, which was created by the renowned woodcut artist Richard Wells. Wells is known for his work in folk horror.

The vinyl version is a nice, clean pressing, and its analog warmth feels appropriate for their vintage sound.

The LP I found is a 2025 U.S. reissue on Nuclear Blast Records, pressed on olive-green vinyl (a perfect aesthetic choice). Oddly, this release is not even on Discogs. There is a UK/Europe version that does match up; however, the Discogs notes state: “Features a remaster by John Davis, the same remaster used in a previous reissue. Exclusive band variants as well as standard editions from the Green Lung store, Nuclear Blast, and other retailers exist.”

After listening to this album for years, it has become one of my favorites—it is great to finally have it on vinyl.

https://spotify.link/aArJyE0QYXb