We all know that Sweden is one of the go to countries when seeking out top quality underground rock music so we are not going to go on about how Sweden has for years turned out one top notch band after another or that every discerning fan of doom, stoner rock and heavy psych has at the very least one album from a Swedish band in their record collection because you already know this. Instead we will just announce that Eyes Of The Oak, a Swedish outfit whose grooves are a blend of drone heavy psych doom and prog, have a new album out entitled "Neolithic Flint Dagger", and if that does not peak your interest you might as well stop reading right now!
Let us establish right from the off that although Eyes Of The Oak are Swedish and do ply their trade beneath the shadow of the mainstream they are not your archetypical Swedish underground band, there is a strange sort of icy detachment about Eye Of The Oak's sound that is hard to explain but nonetheless does exist. Take for example the appropriately titled opening number "Cold Alchemy", this is a song in possession of all the chugging guitar riffage and hard driven rhythms you could wish for from a band in this field but then you notice the icy edginess of that riffage and that those rhythms do not so much thunder as roll over you like a cold hard wind blowing across frozen wastelands, add to this the clipped goth-like dynamics of the accompanying vocals and you may just start to understand what we mean by "icy detachment". Do not however think for one moment that the above description is a criticism, far from it, in fact it is this detachment and iciness that makes this song and those that follow such a joy to listen to and then re-listen to. Songs like "Way Home", the atmospheric "The Burning of Rome", the post-metallic "In the Wind" the epic "Offering to the Gods" and the folkish title track "Neolithic Flint Dagger" posses a saga like quality that although far removed from Viking metal share a similar quality of story telling and imagery, albeit stories and images viewed from from a slightly more chilled and frosted perspective.
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