GET TO KNOW: Green Lung
- Kiarash Golshani
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
There’s an old book out there your more mythologically inclined friend most likely owns. It’s a tome in a beautiful black hardback with a glossy golden embossed title, Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain. The front also displays a horned screaming face, the Ooser of Dorset. Within the pages is an exhaustive compilation of the wyrd and wonderful traditions of this very ancient land once known as Albion, and hardly a stone is left unturn’d. The book goes region-by-region and uncovers peculiarities from even the deepest and darkest corners of ye olde dragon’s back. No band encapsulates the vibe of that book quite like them; the eminence of British folklore themselves, the GREEN LUNG.
The legend of the Lung began in the far-off year of 2017, when they were something of a supergroup formed of members from various doom metal bands. Londoners by the grace of god, they began by playing shows around their local haunts, spots like the New Cross Inn, The Dev, and The Bird’s Nest, and the ones who got to see them during these nascent days knew they weren’t destined for them forever. They had hunger, and they had style. They also had only one EP out back then, the extraordinary Green Man Rising, a phenomenally sludgy endeavour that very much still holds up.
To the band now though, it represents something more like a child’s drawing on the fridge, a first attempt. Founding members Tom Templar, Scott Black, and Matt Wiseman were quick to up the momentum, releasing another EP that year of original songs and some more refined numbers from their first effort, this would come to be known as the Free The Witch EP record in 2018. Bassist Joseph Ghast also recorded backing vocals and organ for this one, and the band also recruited a permanent organist in the form of John Wright. Older fans will know the cover art was once different, more in line with what you’d expect from a London doom group. But with the development of their sound, so too did their aesthetic morph into the ones you see now. The artwork of GREEN LUNG is fundamentally tied to the lino work of Richard Wells, whose instantly recognisable inky style has become the staple of the band’s visuals.
Drawn in by their strong aesthetic, catchy riffs, and their “Sabbath-meets-Queen” sound, the band attracted more and more fans. The following year would herald their first album, the now classic Woodland Rites, which would elevate them into the stratosphere. For a while before the world was plunged into lockdown, in metal circles it was nearly impossible to miss the beautiful Branca Studios designed Let the Devil In shirts featuring a dead-eyed nun praying to heaven. Many songs from this album are still show staples, Templar Dawn, the title track, the aforementioned Let the Devil In, and Call of the Coven. With this, they established themselves as an alternative offering to the London doom scene, something faster and more traditional, but as deft and chunky as the best of them. And a bit like those feet in ancient time, GREEN LUNG soon embarked upon England’s mountains green and began to tour extensively. With each show the fanbase grew. Word-of-mouth saw attendance at the shows grow and the band cultivated something of a cult following.
This culminated with their 2021 show at Bloodstock festival. All around the camps, the festival goers seem to all have had one friend who said he was excited to see the “cool band what had the awesome album come out” and that the camp should “give ‘em a chance”. This resulted in the Sophie Lancaster stage being packed straight to the back for the band’s Bloodstock debut, where they proceeded to blow the faces clean off of everyone who attended. This was the catalyst of their superstardom today.
Soon afterwards, the follow-up album emerged, Black Harvest. The album is still immense, larger and louder than their previous endeavours with a fat organ lazing underneath the whole damn thing. Beautiful stuff. Old Gods, Leaders of the Blind, Reaper’s Scythe, Born to a Dying World - all killer, no filler, and now the big dogs in the metal press were also getting in on the action, you’d be hard pressed to find a review that didn’t love this thing to death. More touring ensued, more amazing shows and more publicity. The band was going relentlessly from strength to strength with no signs of slowing down.
After signing with Nuclear Blast the following year, they began to tour with some larger bands. Their tour with CLUTCH awarded them more exposure, and their later tour opening for OPETH did much of the same. By 2023, they were a force to be reckoned with in the scene, with increasingly large stage productions and a mighty legion of fans – they even managed to get their own Ooser. You could go to any metal festival in the country, and there’d be at least one GREEN LUNG shirt or patch (a principle that still remains today). With their third and most recent album, This Heathen Land, the bangers continue. The Forest Church, Mountain Throne, One for Sorrow, Oceans of Time. Here they doubled down, and the album doubles as a guidebook to various magical sites on the isles. The release cycle saw them return to Bloodstock festival, this time on the main stage (which also included the worlds slowest circle pit, perfection). Their tours now extended beyond England, and over the oceans wide and far. But when they did play in England, it was to massive fanfare, their headlining show at the O2 academy Islington being the most potent example, as bodies were thrown and crowds surfed over evermore to the tunes like a rough sea.
This leads us to today, where they’ve just announced they’re headlining the amazing Desertfest, a festival the boys have always gone to as attendees in previous years. Not only that, but the recording of their highly anticipated fourth album is now complete, and like the waning of the moon, we enter a new exciting phase of the Lung. It’s exciting to see these guys get to where they are now, and if you’re just hopping on for the ride now, hang tight, there’s plenty more goodness to come. That should do for a basic GREEN LUNG primer. Now go and lowball some guy on Vinted for his copy of Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain. You won’t regret it.
Green Lung will headline Desertfest on the 17th of May 2026.
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