Northern Oak - Of Roots And Flesh review
Band: | Northern Oak |
Album: | Of Roots And Flesh |
Style: | Progressive folk metal |
Release date: | October 2014 |
01. The Dark Of Midsummer
02. 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
Nature-y band name and album title? Equally nature-y album cover with folkloric overtones? Yeah, typical folk metal. In spite of being pretty typical in so many ways, Northern Oak have done a supremely bang-up job with Of Roots And Flesh.
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.
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