Oak & Bone

I have one more already opened record from this batch, the self-titled LP from Oak & Bone. The opener is called Oakener, so you should just expect pushing Hardcore Punk as close to the edge of Stoner Death Doom as possible. 

Aspirin and alcohol aren't the most exciting drugs in music, but i think we can at least give proper credit for specificity. 

I'm somewhat known for being really hard on lyrics, especially when they are terrible. These aren't. It might not be your cup of caffeinated beverage, but these are legitimate free verse poems delivered with what must be the world's strongest uvula. As screaming goes, this is appropriately mucus-laden while still maintaining a modicum of intelligibility. Many many many bands are much much worse and more famous. I might be totally biased by the particular bands from there that attract my attention, but Syracuse, NY does not come across as a particularly enjoyable place to live. In fact, that entire I90 run from Buffalo to Albany just seems totally depressed and miserable. Google maps research on that one? Of course, i go all out for these things. $100 real dollars if you can guess one of the songs from my discography about a crush i had on a girl from Utica 9 lifetimes ago. 

You're gonna say "whaaaaa?" like you always do when i'm imagineering your reactions, but this album is like Monster Magnet meets Crowbar on Quaaluuds. It's sludgy, but it grooves. There's a couple brief moments of super drippy surf reverb, soggy chorused cleans, some indescribably nasty leads through at least 3 stacked fuzz pedals, and the vocals are just putrid. Fantastic. 

And that brings us to a really great story i've never told anyone. Once in one of my past lives i took a trip with my friend Vinh to visit his and my families in New York. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, i want you to understand the real mind bending realities of life. A guy apologizing profusely for having to run off to the bathroom to shoot up, skating behind a grocery store where cops couldn't see you from the street, a death metal backyard gradutation party with peoples' grandmas clapping between songs, friends frustrated with other friends for ruining their DnD game by breaking out the LSD, but nobody actually screaming or beating the crap out of each other, just some of the genuinely nicest drug addicts and fringe members of society i've ever met going about their day. 

Downtown Albany seemed like a place i never want to visit again, but OKC's crime rates have always been tangibly higher and i don't recall ever personally getting mugged or murdered. I mean, if you're walking down dark alleys at 3am pretty much anywhere, you're probably going to stumble upon a few crime rate statistics in progress; that's reality. When i moved to Iowa, i frequently found myself explaining to people the concept of going three blocks out of your way because that particular light turned red and you DO NOT want to be stopped at that intersection, the surprising amount your friend's head bleeds when someone bashes it with a mag light, drive by shootings at the frat house. I saw a guy get shot in broad daylight walking down the sidewalk. I did not hang around to give my eyewitness report to the police, i kept on driving like a person who didn't want any part of that. I have a theory that people don't actually pay attention to real life because it is just too traumatic to handle. I pay attention. To quote Rutger Hauer, "i've seen things you people wouldn't believe."

I don't think that story is supposed to do or mean anything, it's just what bubbles to the surface while listening to this album. It's a fairly accurate aural depiction of wishing you were anywhere but smack dab in the middle of the bottom of the barrel and no longer having the ability to sugercoat it. I don't have that reaction to say Lamb of God or Messhuggah or  Black Dahlia Murder. There must be a terroir or zeitgeist or psychic nexus at work here with Oak & Bone. It connects.