I'll be honest with you - somehow, I had not heard the name Oak, Ash & Thorn until I was offered to premiere their upcoming EP. But following this introduction, I went back to listen to their previous two releases and I've absolutely fallen in love with their d-beat inflected, richly expressive take on death metal. The aforementioned EP, Eternal, sees the band sign with the excellent Lost Future Records (Harboured, Sleep Maps, OBJECT AS SUBJECT) which will release it on May 19th. It's a tight little release, composed of two furious, moving, and heavy-hitting track which you can stream right below!
Damn, damn, damn! I've spent a few listens trying to decide which track I like best but I can't really choose. "Distant Mountains, Distant Gods", especially when the clean vocals erupt over those chunky riffs and that present groove section (prone to excellent blast-beats), reminds me of Thrawsunblat and that's a high compliment indeed. I love how epic it feels, channeling more melodic leads alongside its core sound to generate that mountain-sweeping, soaring vibe that I adore so much in metal. "Unchain the Wolf" which follows it has a more punk-y verve to it that I also really appreciate. It's a more directly groovy and heavy track, flirting with heavy metal, d-beat, death metal, and even a bit of power metal at times. It also has that excellent Thrawsunblat vibes and they work even better with the track's otherwise higher octane thrust.
All in all, Oak, Ash & Thorn do a lot with just two tracks, pushing their sound to new places and to new expressions of what they've always been about. As I've discovered over the past few days, this is nothing more than well made, thought out, and passionately performed metal that runs on the wild and epic sound we love here on Heavy Blog.
Make sure you click through above to the album's Bandcamp page to pre-order the album before it releases. These guys definitely deserve your support!