Artist: Oak Pantheon (US) Album: The Void (EP, 2011) Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal Yesterday Ray sent us a line, sticking the big fat fact that of Oak Pantheon’s EP release smack in my goddamn nose. I write about these geezers two weeks ago, even stating that their EP is to be released on July 12th and yet my scrawny brain still forgets. If it wasn’t for Ray this wouldn’t have been here today. Thanks Ray!

With this release, the other four songs on The Void become available for streaming and name-your-price purchase on Oak Pantheon’s Bandcamp. I just spent a while listening through the songs and can happily report it’s a winner as expected.

In the Dead of Winter Night, the EP’s opening track, was the song we featured as an exclusive a few weeks ago and it impressed massively. The other songs are called Fear Me, Architect of the Void Pt. I, Refuge and Architect of the Void Pt. II.

Fear Me is lesser beauty than In the Dead of Winter Night. It features a similar sadness, but rather than a warm sadness, a sadness of good memories, this is more of a cold there’s-no-good-way-for-this-to-end sadness when it starts. It’s of a notable different inclination to the opening track, but it features the same carefully thought through build-up of moods and emotions. There’s a break that literally breaks with the desperate sadness and has rays of light, though few, peaking through the clouds. After that there seems to be acceptance, and the song continues with a persistent force for the remainder of the song and you can just feel the clouds break up and make way for light and closure.

Part one of the song that gave (part of) its name to the whole EP starts with acoustic guitars and soon turns to quite a positive and beautiful interplay of electric and acoustic leads. There’s still a certain sadness to the song – sadness is pretty much a given on this EP – but the song’s just fine with being sad. It’s enjoying it and just milking it for inspiration. It turns heavier and more solid as it runs along, and Dan Dankmeyer-ian leads appear, though not as low-tuned.

The vocals on this, as is the case with the other songs, provide a huge contrast with the music that’s intrinsically beautiful. If you’ve ever heard acid vocals, these ones will make those look like babies crying. This stuff is so acid it’s enough to completely dissolve a medium-sized truck and leave nothing but snot. Luckily it doesn’t have that impact on my ears, although my ears are starting to bleed from the shear volume I’m playing this on.

Refuge provides a brief – it spans not even two minutes – intermission between parts I and II of the void architect. It’s acoustic guitar, very nearly cheerful, rather sweet, soft and gently. I imagine a soft girly voice singing about bubble gum in her hair and this would’ve been in the charts. Or a suitable soundtrack for a girly movie.

It’s quite the contrast from Architect of the Void Pt. I. The seam with Pt. II is nearly not noticeable, as that continues the same acoustic melody, only faster. But it soon takes it all apart, as electric guitars rise, and bring loads of light again. Of the sadness that was so omnipresent in the first songs, hardly anything remains. It’s like the depressed skull-fucked man has regained himself and discovered that he alone is responsible for his fucked-uppedness. And from that moment on he just breaks the wall he’s built around him down, big lumps at a time and seeing more and more of what’s been around him all this time. I figured, for all the song’s victory, it deserves to be the featured song today.

The song ends with an outro that seems to capture the man’s personal victory over himself. If we recall what Sean Golyer, engineer and co-producer on the EP, said about the EP’s meaning, he said ”The “Architect of the Void” tracks are vaguely about a man who sets out to kill “God”, but the other tracks are not intertwined in any purposeful way and we want our listeners to figure out the songs for themselves.”. Well I beg to disagree. This EP’s pretty much a story, from beginning to end and it flows magnificently, beginning with sadness and ending with victory. Whether that be over God or himself, or perhaps he is the one who’s divine. In the end what matters is that this EP is divine.

You must go and check it out now!

My Grade: 9.5/10
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Tags: American, atmospheric, black, melodic, review

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.