### The Oath: The oath

#### 13/05/14 || gk

Rise Above’s latest signing, The Oath continues the recent trend of female fronted occult rock with a doomy undertone and their debut album is a promising entrant in this crowded field. The band is made up of Swedish guitarist Linnea Olsson and German vocalist Johanna Sadonis with the line up being rounded off with session players Simon Bouteloup on bass and Andrew Prestridge on drums. The band’s self titled debut released earlier this year and it’s a pretty solid collection of hard rocking, vintage heavy metal songs.

“The Oath” opens with All must die and a crunchy bass heavy riff starts proceedings with a doomy chorus balancing out the song nicely. Elsewhere on the album, “Night child” is anthemic and catchy with a solid performance from vocalist Sadonis and is all hard rocking goodness while “Black rainbow” is like a mash up of NWOBHM and Motorhead and has great energy. “Silver and dust” is more catchy hard rock with some impressive bass playing while “In dream” is a calm and reflective acoustic piece that fits in nicely with the rest of the album while being an unexpected and pleasant change of pace. “Psalm 7” finishes off the album in fine style with a slow burning intro that slowly morphs into an epic doom laden atmospheric song that relies as much on the blues as on traditional metal tropes.

I tend to view this whole modern occult rock scene with a fair amount of cynicism but The Oath sound like they could be the real deal. The songs are all derivative of heavy rock music from the 70s but the band manages to add an atmosphere that is quite unique and touches upon a slightly strange mix of goth, blues, punk and heavy metal that works quite well. Johanna Sadonis sounds a lot like Blood Ceremony’s Alia O’Brien except that her delivery style is a lot more hard rock/ metal. Guitarist Linnea Olsson’s style is rooted in the blues but I think it would be safe to say that both Mercyful Fate and Motorhead were influences. The rhythm section is really solid on this album with Bouteloup’s bass playing in particular standing out for its fluidity.

“The oath” released in March this year and the band announced their break up through their mailing list in April, about a month after the release of the album so unfortunately there’s no way to tell if they’ll ever live up to the potential displayed on this album. Still, as far as modern heavy metal/ hard rock goes, The Oath has released a fine debut album and is worth checking out among the sea of mediocrity that this crowded sub-genre usually has to offer.

- Information
- Released: 2014
- Label: Rise Above
- Website: The Oath Facebook
- Band
- Johanna Sadonis: vocals
- Linnea Olsson: guitars
- Simon Bouteloup: bass
- Andrew Presridge: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. All Must Die
- 02. Silk Road
- 03. Night Child
- 04. Leaving Together
- 05. Black Rainbow
- 06. Silver & Dust
- 07. Death Delight
- 08. In Dream
- 09. Psalm 7