Northern Oak - Of Roots And Flesh - review
Northern Oak - Of Roots And Flesh - review
Band
Northern Oak Album
Of Roots And Flesh Style
Progressive folk metal Release date
October 04, 2014 Tracklist
01. The Dark Of Midsummer02. Marston Moor
03. Gaia
04. Nerthus
05. Isle Of Mists
06. Taken
07. Requiescant In Pace
08. The Gallows Tree
09. Bloom
10. Of Roots And Flesh
11. Only Our Names Will Remain
12. Outro
A review by
Doc G. September 17, 2014
First of all, someone needs to give Northern Oak lessons on song placement - I'd be willing to give said classes for a nominal fee - they open up with probably the weakest track this album has to offer. A slow, stagnant stomper that gives the impression Of Roots And Flesh is going to be one hell of a boring album...
...Survive that first dull eight minutes, folks, because the rest of the album is a great trip.
The rough sound can most accurately be described as a proggy Equilibrium combined with Primordial's melodic black metal approach. Of course, you've got (mostly genuine) folk instruments as well - woodwinds, violin, the hurdy-gurdy etc, etc. What keeps the overall sound from becoming another gimmicky, cliché folk metal album is the consistency of the instruments. Yes, Of Roots And Flesh does host a wide variety of "folk" instruments, but the only constant is the wind instruments. They utilize these wind instruments in such a way that they're an integral part of their sound without using it as a crutch. Even when they introduce a different instrument into the mix, it's never ostentatious. So many disposable folk acts seem to lean on predictably anomalous instruments to give some memorable quality to their otherwise garbage music. Northern Oak's music is composed well enough that it would be able to stand on its own without anything outside the guitar-bass-drums template, yet those little additions offer a lot of extra depth.
Due to the progressive tendencies of this album, it's pretty difficult to separate one song from the next, but each passage carries a distinct flavor. Doomy and atmospheric parts? Check. Frantic, blast-beat driven extreme moments? Check. Jaunty, catchy "typical" folk metal segments? Yup. And of course, what folk metal album would be complete without some mellow acoustic breaks?
Northern Oak hit all the right spots. That might be an issue for some people. While this band definitely has its own flavor complete with incredibly detailed songwriting, they aren't exactly kicking down the walls of folk metal here. It's written well, performed well and produced well, but never strays away from any of the folk metal norms.
Of Roots And Flesh is simply a typical folk metal album done very well.
Comments
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Posts: 115  |
Posts: 115
"So many disposable folk acts seem to lean on predictably anomalous instruments to give some memorable quality to their otherwise garbage music." *cough* Eluveitie *cough* "Due to the progressive tendencies of this album, it's pretty difficult to separate one song from the next" That is exactly how I feel about a lot of "prog" stuff...the way they all use the same extended harmnony, tritone movement, and pseudo-polyrhythms/syncopation in every song makes it all very monotone.
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Posts: 673
I've listened to a couple of songs from their previous albums and found them quite pleasant. I'll definitely give this a listen then.
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 Posts: 4326 |
Posts: 4326 Written by WinterMadness on 17.09.2014 at 17:59 You must be listening to pseudo-prog (i.e. djent and instrumental wank) or copy paste prog...
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Posts: 115 |
Posts: 115 Written by LeKiwi on 18.09.2014 at 09:51 You're right, that's why I put "prog" in quotes. I'm referring to djent and all this new deathcore-pretending-to-be-prog stuff that has exploded in the past year or two.
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Posts: 121  |
Posts: 121
They've got a couple of songs from the new album streaming on their bandcamp here: http://music.northernoak.co.uk/.
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| Posts: 4326 |
Posts: 4326 Written by WinterMadness on 18.09.2014 at 22:24 Ahh, excuse my post then...I misread 
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Posts: 121 |
Posts: 121
I like the song Taken, but I can't get behind a single other one. A disappointing effort imo. I feel they went too far astray from Monuments, which is maybe what they wanted? If so, it was inevitable they were going to alienate some of their fanbase. :[
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