There may well be a preponderance of bands with the word Black in their name but for every ‘Sabbath’; ‘Stone Cherry’ or ‘Crowes’ there are thousands of others you will never have heard of, and who will certainly never reach such lofty heights. Thankfully my ears tell me that we’ll soon be adding ‘Oak County’ to the former list. This is hard, heavy and immediate and for once the bio is band on: “…combining big, catchy choruses and supermassive, heavy riffs, with plenty of guitar solos, the band combine all these ingredients to brew their very own hard rocking moonshine, that’ll leave any listener with an insatiable thirst for more!”
In truth over the past half a dozen years Denmark has been one area of Europe I’ve had a healthy interest in musically as aside from the bigger names like Pretty Maids, D.A.D. and Volbeat there have been a lot of new bands making a mark.
Although Black Oak County (originally named Great White Buffalo) has been around since 2012, allowing to test a lot of these tracks on stage, this is their first long-player. I first heard them late last year when they dropped the single ‘Mad Dog’ and whilst to many it might sound like an unrefined Black Stone Cherry when you listen to the album as a whole there’s a bit more of the ‘modern’ and a bit less of the ‘southern’ about them.
So what do you get? Ten kick-ass songs, great ‘live-sounding’ production from Jonas Haagensen and some great individual performances. This is a band that seems to have hugely benefitted from playing for a number of years and honing these tunes!
Like the best of albums it’s hard to play favourites though as usual we will – opener ‘Something Else’ gets things started with the best foot forward and really tells the story of the album – no frills hard rock n roll with more than a hint of Black stone Cherry about it.
Elsewhere there are nuances, but really it’s all hard rock driven by the guitars and aggressive vocals and ably backed by a more than solid backline. Of them all though it’s the opening stanza of ‘Something Else’; the hard rocking chug of ‘Enough on my Plate’; the fire and menace of ‘Bogeyman’ and first single and my introduction ‘Mad Dog’ that grab us most.
Don’t get us wrong the rest is pretty strong too especially the well observed ‘R is for Redneck’ and the slower most BSC ‘Save Me’. Indeed the only track that doesn’t cut it is aptly named ‘Nothing to Say’ but that slight misstep is quickly put right by the hard and spiteful ‘Never Cared’.
These guys just might be the next big thing you’re looking for!
