Some trees live long lives and evolve in surprising ways over time, resulting in unpredictable shapes. In recent years, And Also The Trees has gradually broken away from its coldwave roots to move towards a more acoustic and softer sound, while retaining its emotional power, on the albums The Bone Carver in 2022 (review), full of contradictory emotions, and then on Mother-of-Pearl Moon in 2024 (review), which is more linear but rich in beautiful sounds. This year, And Also The Trees presents us with a successor to these two albums, The Devil's Door. The sky on the cover is calm, but the tree is twisted; where is the British band taking us this time?
When listening to it, The Devil's Door comes across as an album where we find ourselves on the threshold of something powerful and feared; the record is calm, taking the time to paint moments of emotional intensity with movements that give it a cinematic power, but we sense that we are lingering on the edge of something that could be a storm, on the other side of the door we are leaning towards. From their icy beginnings to the present day, And Also The Trees have always had a knack for placing us on the edge of contradictory emotions, and they do so again here with this slow-tempo album, where the vocals and haunting sounds hint at contained turmoil. To achieve this, And Also The Trees envelops its guitar, drums and bass in a wide variety of acoustic sounds, starting with Colin Ozanne's clarinet but also featuring contributions from Belgian violinist Catherine Graindorge.
As always with And Also The Trees, everything is perfectly mastered: the harmony of the instrumentation evokes a warm sadness within us, Simon Huw Jones' vocals are hypnotically fascinating, and the melodies gently dance us to the edge of the precipice. While remaining a very calm album, The Devil's Door nevertheless has the merit of avoiding the linearity of Mother-of-Pearl Moon. Of course, we may regret the days when the band offered us cold and tormented music, but what's the point? They have already given us plenty to satisfy us in this genre. So let's take the time to lose ourselves in the haunting melody of The Silver Key, the strange final frenzy of The Trickster, or the instrumental ramblings of Beginning of the End, which takes us far away... Hot or cold, And Also The Trees is always impressive in its mastery and intensity.
