Regular visitors to SonicAbuse will have come to know the following about our writers: we’re physical product junkies – we love CDs and vinyl and the amazing amount of effort artists put into the covers and booklets; we believe that there is an amazing world of music out there just waiting to be discovered and that to find it both takes and rewards effort and, finally, that the only music worth listening to is born out of passion and conviction. For that reason we primarily cover independent acts and artists and we focus on the above details, always excited by new material arriving on our doorstep and always hoping to expand our horizons with an unheard release. In this case the band is most familiar to us, Northern Oak having released one of the finest albums of 2010 in ‘Monuments’, but they instantly have our attention with their beautifully packaged (and kickstarter funded) new release ‘of roots and flesh’ which comes packaged in a stunning digipack bearing the artwork of the band themselves in collaboration with Vandenis design and illustration. With its evocative cover and beautifully laid out booklet, the digipack feels lavish and its clear from the outset that the band made good use indeed of the funds provided them by their loyal and passionate fan base.
A new Northern Oak album is a thing to both celebrate and cherish. One of a recent spate of excellent UK-based bands (which includes De profundis, Spires and Winterfylleth) Northern Oak are a band who conjure a mystical, magical atmosphere with their music that is quintessentially English. As a child I was always captivated by the folklore of the land – the alluring tale of King Arthur, the mysterious and haunting landscape of Glastonbury and the Arthurian tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – and it is of these myths and tales that Northern Oak’s music is so beautifully redolent. Juxtaposing ferocious black metal passages with scenes of eerie, almost pastoral calm (thanks to the haunting flute of Catie Williams) the band continue to craft epic pieces of music that utterly immerse the senses. Indeed, on this latest offering, it is arguable that Northern Oak have honed their skills in almost every conceivable way, the album offering some truly jaw dropping moments that will leave listeners eternally glad they backed this uniquely wonderful band.
Nothing if not ambitious, the band open with the eight minute ‘the dark of midsummer’ which draws inspiration from Darkthrone, Pink Floyd, Therion and traditional UK folk in equal measure. A subtle, enigmatic opening builds an atmosphere of subtle menace before the band explode into life, delivering chugging riffs and a haunting melody on the flute that recalls ‘Deggial’-era Therion with its powerful driving and idiosyncratic pairing of musical styles. The music moves across a range of moods, Digby Brown’s warm strings and violin adding depth to the sound whilst Martin Collins’ ghastly rasp tears across the face of the track, unleashing the intelligent and eloquent lyrics with a venomous force and white hot fury. Paul Whibberley creates the sound of rolling thunder on the opening to the ferocious ‘Marston moor’, a huge, menacing blast of black metal with Digby’s energetic violin work sweetening the sound without ever compromising its power. A tale of bloody battle, the lyrics perfectly match the musical fire and fury, the flute and violin giving the music a regal feel even as the band unleash huge churning riffs guaranteed to set the adrenalin flowing. In contrast, ‘Gaia’ begins as a subtle, beautifully understated piece of music that sees Richard Allen exercising his formidable bass skills, underpinning the majestic music with a real human heart before the world is torn asunder by a scarifying black metal riff and Martin’s harrowing screams. ‘Nerthus’ continues in this vein, strings and flute doing valiant battle against soaring riffs and genuine black metal menace although even here the band are not prepared to make it that easy to follow and the song devolves into pure, earthen folk, as beautifully engaging as the Levellers at their most relaxed, the band weaving a bewitching melody around the listener before returning to the heavier pastures that opened the song. An instrumental track, ‘Isle of mists’ is simply beautiful and needs no further description as no words could truly do this piece of music justice anyway.
‘Taken’ is a mid-paced slab of icy, blackened metal that is pitched somewhere between My Dying Bride’s epic, majestic doom and Burzum’s earthen misery, the rich melody and evocative riffs scoured clean by the mastery of Martin’s towering vocal performance. ‘Requiescant in pace’ is a brief and unnerving segue that feeds into the album’s most brutal track, the seething ‘the gallows tree’ which features full-tilt riffs and a violin performance so unhinged it virtually veers into jazz territory. A searing, wide-ranging track, ‘the gallows tree’ highlights Northern Oak’s mastery of their art, the music genuinely progressive and utterly thrilling. Speaking of thrilling, ‘Bloom’ with its propulsive percussion, huge riffs, jagged screams and aching melodies is a heart pounding piece of music that keeps you utterly hooked. It’s as if the band have distilled everything them that makes them great into one, near perfect piece of music that neatly summarises the myriad strengths of the album. The title track is similarly engaging, the churning guitars and grand melodies highlighting the band’s panoramic ambition, their ability to draw from influences too numerous to list and transform them into a cohesive whole a stunning testament to their ability and song-writing nous. The album ends on a solemn note with the beautifully poignant ‘only our names will remain’, a testament to those who fell in battle, not for honour or personal conviction, but for a patriotic ideal which pales in comparison to looking into an opponent’s eyes as they fall upon your sword. It’s wonderfully worded and appeals to a universal theme as relevant now as it has been for wars across the centuries, and you’re left contemplating how few bands take as much trouble to craft lyrics as elegant and intelligent as Northern Oak.
With a production job that is beautifully clear, cold when it needs to be and yet capable of great warmth and depth when the music veers into melodic territory, ‘of roots and flesh’ is a near perfect album that stands as a testament to the skills of the band, to the music model that allowed the band to appeal directly to fans in order to gain the necessary funding and to the rude health of the metal underground. Yes the album is rooted in extreme metal, and yet there is so much more on offer here than a pedal-to-the-metal approach designed to overwhelm the listener with shock and awe. For sure the band engage in moments of great, gut churning heaviness, but there is also light and shade, subtle, melodic nuances that underpin the lyrical narrative and the fact that the band relies on the skills of its members rather than on banks of synths only makes the whole sound more effective. This is not an album to be recommended to fans of this genre or that genre (although the frequently harrowing vocals will undoubtedly put off those not at least familiar with extreme metal) but to fans of music in general – to those who revel in intelligence and integrity and delight in music that crosses boundaries with no more regard for self-imposed demarcation than it has for modern trends. Northern Oak have created a stunning, beautiful, bold and genuinely progressive album here – one that was more than worth the wait and one that rewards the band’s fans in spades. It is an essential disc and undoubtedly one of the records of a year which has already seen remarkable breadth and variety and it is an unmitigated pleasure to listen to from start to finish.
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