Oak — Silent Spring

Catalogue no: PF049
Format: C60
Edition: x150

Preview a track from this tape on the band's Bandcamp page — right here.

All the way from Stockholm, Oak grace Prairie Fire with one of the hottest, most visceral sludge recordings we've heard in a long time. In the first track alone, the listener is assaulted by gut-crushing bottom-end chords, built up by spacious, reverberating crescendos, entranced by hypnotic drum work, and enveloped by echoing, consuming vocals. Blissfully exhausting fare for the faint of heart, and there's still five more tracks to go.

What becomes most evident upon repeated listens is the sheer amount of control and composition that Oak mange to wrestle out of their instruments. The brutal intelligence contained within “Silent Spring” easily matches with the best of the sludge/psychedelic metal genre — and that's saying something. Take “Realms of the Soil” as a prime example: the chords come slow, hard and slightly stuttered, only adding to the neck-snapping propulsion driven by the accompanying caveman drums. A third of the way through its 11-minute march, the drums break off to leave only lone menacing guitar pawing away in the distance; the drums slither their way across the foreground before resuming a gentle pounding, as the band builds the looping crescendo up to the perfect pitch; and finally, the hammer-drop — a renewed sense of rhythmic sloth, each player exercising the greatest of care while driving the hook deep into yr skull.

And yet, there's more than perfectly-executed sludge on display here. “No Birds Sing” opens with guitars humming across a desert plateau — far from brutal, but no less likely to pull you in with their addictive melodies. “Indiscriminately From the Skies” stretches a lonely, overdriven guitar across a void of subtle tone and reverb; chest-thumping drums join the fray, but only add to the sense of isolation as they echo across the space; squealing, high-end strings scream at the sky, and the track closes with a deep sense of desperation looming overhead. “Nature Fights Back” closes the album out in spectacular style, a war march with all the splendour of a cataclysmic landslide, boulders of tone and vocals piling overtop each other in a display of sheer, natural power.

The entirety of “Silent Spring” has been recorded, mixed and mastered with jaw-dropping clarity while retaining a raw, abrasive feel; the vocals never over-power the instruments, but nothing gets buried in the background, either — each part is clearly discernible, a further testament to the precision with which this recording has been executed.

We're thrilled to welcome Oak to our catalogue, and can't wait for this tape to sell out so we can convince them to make another with us. Trust us — you'll be jamming this on repeat until the apocalypse descends on your doorstep.