INTRODUCING: Black Oak
Finding bands with a varied interest in musical genres is often like sifting for gold. While there are plenty of bands that play with bold, hardline commitment to one genre, to find one that has carefully and lovingly poured themselves into a variety of influences to create something not only unique, but immensely bold is a hard find. We caught up with BLACK OAK, one such gem that have released their debut album Egolution, which powers through a plethora of sonic textures to create incredibly atmospheric and engaging post rock.
Having met around 2009 in their small hometown of Nynäshamn, Sweden, the members of BLACK OAK initially were only ever friends who jammed and intermingled within other bands. “I had a solo project and needed some good musicians for a concert,” guitarist Emil Fredenmark, explains, “Niklas [Olsson, guitars] and Samuéla [Burenstrand, vocals] had recently started a band. I asked them if they could play the concert with me and when we started to rehearse, we all felt something special and exciting coming to life.” With the addition of Niklas’ brother Robin on drums and Magnus Hedblom on bass, the line-up was set.
The band’s sound is hard to describe. While there are bright post rock moments that balance with the huge progressive passages, it’s too simple a definition to be really representative of the sound. Ranging from oppressive and dense, to cathartic and gentle, BLACK OAK have a scale that passes the realms of just pure post rock. “This album has been a way for us to discover our own music and sound. We grew up listening to a lot of metal and hardcore but also progressive rock, jazz, electronic music etc, so everything gets blended together and it has been a beautiful experience to feel and hear the songs as they have evolved.”
One of many draws to BLACK OAK is the way the band play with dynamics. While all those elements of hardcore, prog, electronics and jazz all flow through Egolution, there’s a sense that they’ve never overplayed with one element; the key thing is to serve the song and the complex emotions it’s convaying. “We have always had the philosophy that heavy and aggressive music needs its dynamics,” Niklas agrees. “It easily gets boring if you don’t have the contrasts. One of the most dynamic parts is the calm part, with big clean guitar chords in the middle of Death. It’s really cool to play this part live because we can make it even slower and more vulnerable and that makes the outro of the song sound so much bigger. That outro is the part of the story -at least this is how we see it- that tells you what will happen when you die. Feeling that premise, combined with the music, has many times been a quite far out experience, much thanks to that dynamic build up.”
Those lofty topics lend themselves to dense musical exploration, and that complex mixture as resulted in some truly unique songs. “We also love the dynamic build-up of Doubt because of the calm beginning of the song venturing through some weird jazz-punk parts and then the long exploding outro. Just the simple contrast between clean and distorted guitars is a big part of our sound.”
With their immersive sound being both explosive and gentle depending on the moment, there’s evidently a dense amount of work in every song. For a band that have created this record from a passion for their music, rather than predominantly looking for a financial profit, it obviously took some time to create. “The album took a long time to put together. Most of us have day jobs, children and rent to pay,” says Emil. “A riff that was cool two years ago maybe wasn’t cool anymore and that could change a whole song that had been ‘done’ for two years. Also, we recorded everything ourselves when we had the time and we didn’t have any external assistance or budget. Those factors combined was probably the hardest part, the feeling that we will never be able to finish this project. There were a lot of times when we almost gave up and barely recorded anything for months.” However, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “In a sense that long process shaped the sound because we lived with the songs for so long that we had time, for better and for worse, to second guess ourselves and rewrite things a lot.”
The struggle that many talented artists like BLACK OAK feel is that strain to create when time and resources are limited. Thankfully the band continued to pursue the music that they love. “When speaking of the material itself it was only therapeutic,” Emil reminisces. “It is a beautiful thing that you can take all your light and darkness and turn it into great songs. That’s a small way to make the world better. It’s also rewarding and exciting to write about stuff that’s relatable to us and comes directly from our own human experience.”
While this record was made with passion and developed through years of honing their sound, this is just the start for BLACK OAK. “We’ve spent a long very time writing and producing Egolution and now when the album is complete, we are really excited to see what’s next for BLACK OAK.” Niklas tells us excitedly. “There is already new music in the making. We feel that we still have a lot to discover and Egolution is just the first peace of a larger puzzle.”
Egolution is out now via self-release.
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