Oak – Disintegrate (Review)

Oak are a Portuguese doom metal band and this is their second album.

2019’s Lone impressed me with its atmospheric misery, so I’m pleased to see the band return. Brought to us by current/ex-members of Gaerea, Disintegrate provides 45 minutes of atmospheric death/doom and funeral dirge intensity.

Recorded as a single immense track, Disintegrate is an album of despair and loss. Oak paint lightless vistas of agony and woe. Dappled with rich texture and layered with emotive weight, Disintegrate is a grim tapestry of mournful existential darkness, yet one that’s not without light and colour.

The music is highly expressive, taking the death/doom and funeral doom styles and injecting them with a heart-rending personality that makes for very compelling music. It’s well-written, well-paced, and drips with emotion from every sombre pore it has. Disintegrate gradually unfolds with a character that’s slow and unhurried, yet doesn’t lack in moments of bleak energy or aggression despite its primarily atmospheric approach. It’s relatively varied and dynamic for a work of this nature, which speaks strongly of its creators’ songwriting skills.

Connoisseurs of funeral doom and death/doom will find much familiar here, but that’s not at all to its detriment. Disintegrate is delivered with meaningful passion and a well-developed personality, making for a very enjoyable album that has much to offer and is easy to become absorbed in.

Very highly recommended.