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Monuments

by Northern Oak

Monuments Cover Art
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    Monuments CD

    -Printed by Sound Performance Studios- 16 page, full-colour booklet with lyrics included.

    -As well as the physical CD, you also get an immediate download of the album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you feel like, so you can listen to the tracks while waiting for the CD to arrive. When you click 'Buy Now', it will ask you which format you'd like to download the songs in.

    -The download also includes a bonus instrumental version of the album and a .pdf of the album booklet as extra material!

    Buy Now  ₤6 GBP or more
    ships within 2 days
    edition of 1000

    Monuments CD + Tshirt

    -Printed by Sound Performance Studios- 16 page, full-colour booklet with lyrics.

    -This package deal also includes a t-shirt; two designs are available, the Northern Oak Tree design and the dark green Flourish design. Please specify which design you would like!

    -Green Flourish Shirts are available for in Small, Medium, and Large; the Treeshirt design is available in Small, Medium, Large, XL and Girl's Medium sizes.

    -As well as the physical CD, you also get an immediate ... more

    Buy Now  ₤10 GBP or more
    ships within 2 days
    edition of 1000

  • Digital Album

    Immediate download of the 11-track album in 320k mp3, FLAC or any other format you feel like.

    The download also includes a bonus instrumental version of the album and a .pdf of the album booklet as extra material!

    Buy Now  ₤4 GBP  or more

    Digital Album + Tshirt

    -Immediate download of 11-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you feel like.

    -The download also includes a bonus instrumental version of the album and a .pdf of the album booklet as extra material!

    -This package deal includes a t-shirt; two designs are available, the Northern Oak Tree design and the Yorkshire Teashirt. Please specify which design you would like!

    -Green Flourish Shirts are available for in Small, Medium, and Large; the Treeshirt design is available in Small, Medium, Large, XL and Girl's Medium sizes.

    Buy Now  ₤8 GBP or more
    ships within 2 days

    Green Flourish Tshirt

    For those of our fans who feel that their wardrobe might be a little bit too black, and who also love green...
    Screen printed on Forest Green Gildan Heavy Cotton, this shirt will profess two things to the world: your appreciation of the music of Sheffield's premier purveyors of progressive folk metal and waistcoats, and your love of green twiddly flourish things.
    These shirts are available in Small, Medium, and Large.
    **
    This shirt is also available in the 'Monuments CD & Tshirt' deal, which gets you a shirt and an album for a mere £10!

    Buy Now  ₤7 GBP
    ships within 3 days

    Northern Oak Treeshirt

    If you like folk metal, and you like trees, you should like this tshirt!
    Screen printed on black Gildan Heavy Cotton, this shirt will profess two things to the world: your appreciation of the music of Sheffield's premier purveyors of progressive folk metal and waistcoats, and your love of trees. You big hippy, you. It's okay, we're just as bad as you are. We love trees too!
    These shirts are available in Small, Medium, Large, XL and Girl's Medium.
    **
    This shirt is also available in the 'Monuments CD & Tshirt' deal, which gets you a shirt and an album for a mere £10!

    Buy Now  ₤7 GBP or more
    ships within 3 days
    edition of 18

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about

The second full-length from Sheffield progressive folk metal group Northern Oak, 'Monuments' was recorded, mixed and mastered between March and October of 2010 in a number of Sheffield locations.

Recording by Chris Mole, Harriet Holman, Ajeet Gill of Hellfire Studios and Loo Yen Yeo.

Mixing by Chris Mole.

Mastering by Lee Redfern at Redfern Studios.

credits

released 10 December 2010
Lyrics (unless noted otherwise) by Martin Collins.
Music by Chris Mole, Catherine Williams, Elliot Sinclair, Richard Allan and Paul Whibberley (Northern Oak).

Cover portrait by Travis Smith (www.seempieces.com).
Cover and booklet artwork by Chris Mole.

tags

tags: metal black metal english folk metal epic folk metal folk metal nature progressive folk metal progressive metal sheffield symphonic metal unsigned Sheffield

license

All rights reserved

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about

Founded in early 2006 during a wintry excursion to the Peak District, Northern Oak have been spreading their unique brand of ... more flute-heavy progressive folk metal across Sheffield and the rest of the UK ever since.

Our music sounds like Jethro Tull played by extreme metal fans with an appreciation for everything from Pink Floyd to Emperor. less

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For help with downloads, click here.

For all other inquiries, including help with merch, click here.

shipping and returns

Track Name: Sun God's Wrath
Amaterasu required her shrine be rebuilt every twenty years to maintain its purity, while Apollo drove his chariot across the skies in return for the burning of fat wrapped thighs.

The Romans devoted a day of every week to the worship of Sol Invictus, Boddhisattva of the solar temple seeks to enlighten all and India was transformed for Makar Sankranti in honour of Surya.

Though the rites and deities may have differed,
countless cultures condoned the idea.
Believing they had to act
to make the sun rise again.

Norse wolves would devour the light to bring about Ragnarok, Ra demanded his legend be carved in temples in the desert sands and Tonatiuh demanded the fresh beating hearts of his followers in ritual sacrifice.

Though the rites and deities may have differed,
countless cultures condoned the idea.
Believing the world would end
if humans are negligent.
Track Name: Gawain
Last Christmas at the feast at King Arthur's court
a monstrous figure entered dressed head to toe in green.
With a wicked blade in his hands he challenged us,
"Would the bravest knight take sport in an exchange of blows."

Arthur rose first but I quickly took the axe.
I could not risk Guinevere being left alone.
With one fell strike I cleaved the head from his shoulders
and had assumed myself free from reprisal.

But the courtiers' cheers quickly became cries,
as the corpse rose covered in its crimson.

"Gawain", it spoke, "seek me out in a year's time.
Come receive my blow or be known a defaulter."

The allotted time has passed.
I stand before the Green Chapel.
This is my last chance to turn back.
Though I appear resolute
my soul is uncontrollable,
like forked lightning down my veins.
Trying to escape the fate
of this doomed knight.

My king, I will not falter now.
I will leave no trawpe un-honoured.
No man will brand me coward.
If the Green Knight shall take my head,
then so be it...
Track Name: Into The Forest
Into the forest,
taking memories, leaving only footprints
but the trees would not let it be easy.
Forcing our route in much deeper.
What were we to find there?

Discovering ruins
devoured by moss and roots
draped in an eerie silence
in this place a sense of mourning

We pulled aside the plants and branches,
climbing in amongst the few remaining walls.
Is it disrespect or reverence?
Exploring what was once a life...

We questioned ourselves, each other,
what had these rooms once contained?
Did children run through here laughing?
What pain left this place abandoned?

Into the forest,
We may be fated to end
Just as those before us.
But if we lay foundations
that inspire those who follow,
Then our time
will not be spent
In vain.
Track Name: Silvan Lullaby
The light that shines on golden leaves
Flickers softly through the trees
Lost, she trembles, scared and alone
Deep in the forest and far from home

Now, as the light slowly fades away
The night-folk can dance without fear of the day
Their instruments play a most fearful song
A silvan lullaby, to those who don't belong

She runs in fear, afraid for her life
The sun descends, into the twilight
The night-folk pursue her, their horns baying long
A hollow tree gives respite from their song

Now, as the verdant darkness holds sway
The night-folk can dance, without fear of the day
Their instruments play the same haunting tune
A silvan lullaby that foretells your doom

Interlude and Solos

Now, as I climb from this hollow tree
My ears are opened to the sounds of the sea
Avalon is calling, its wings do me caress
The silvan lullaby has taken my last breath
Track Name: Arbor Low
At the seat of Arbor Low
rumours rise and curl like smoke.
Christian desecration
or ancient intention?
The truth of this site,
none shall know...

If I am condemned to join the mysteries of Arbor Low,
may I leave my mark and shape the flow of history!

We may not understand the importance
but we feel it
but we are drawn to it.
Moulding our minds,
driving our dreams,
outliving its meaning
and joining ours...

Perhaps the greatest designs, are those that go unnoticed.
Unconsciously shaping our thoughts and actions.

*the whispered pleas of those long forgotten*

If my life is to become undecipherable,
may my ribs rise up from the earth like monuments.

If my life is to become undecipherable,
may my ribs rise up from the earth like monuments.

If I am condemned to join the mysteries of Arbor Low,
may I leave my mark and shape the flow of history.
Track Name: Nivis Canto
If you could gaze into a snowflake, what would you find in each one? Those crystalline structures of unearthly perfection, as they fall they transform their environment into a sparkling wonder.

I can only find a rival for their beauty in mankind, those myriad beings messily constructed from hopes and beliefs. With aspirations that defy all measurement but they are no stronger than when they act with one mind.

As they continue to fall, blanketing their surroundings, suffocating them. How can one do anything but marvel at their tyranny? Their cold indifference to all they consume.

No matter how many line the foundations,
whether it be one or a million.
All are lost without a trace
beneath their advance.
Track Name: Cerridwen's Round
Instrumental
Track Name: The Scarlet Woman
She sits atop the beast, upon her forehead her name is carved, Babylon the Great.
None can comprehend the glory of she
Who defiles mankind with their blind consent.
Drunken on the blood of saints.

Luring, she calls me hither. I see her and wonder with admiration. She rules over the kings of the earth. Host for demons, haunt for spirits and every unclean creature.

None can comprehend the glory of she
Who defiles mankind with their blind consent.
Drunken on the blood of saints. Luring, she calls me hither. I see her and wonder with admiration.

I care not if the fruit I long for will be stolen from me. If you are my bringer of ruin, I will embrace the smoke of your burning. So pour forth the wine of your adulteries. I disregard the word of the lamb and pursue her virulent vision, witness to her debaucheries. Revelling in her diabolical nature so impure.

She holds a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. Revelling in her diabolical nature so impure.

How my trembling flesh yearns to drink deeply from those sins and plumb the depths of their profanity. Revelling in her diabolical nature so impure.
Track Name: Death In The Marshes
He stands alone, bloodied and bowed, mops his furrowed brow and surveys the land of his lord.
The scythe he holds in his calloused hands.
Now heavier with soil than the blood of years past.

Severing marsh grass in the way, his forebears cut their cordiality with the clergy.
The grass proves unyielding, the scythe blunted by the efforts of years past.

A death in the marshes.
The defeat inglorious.
A death in the marshes.
The scythe slowly sinking into the mire.
Track Name: Pavane in G Minor
Instrumental
Track Name: In These Hills
The days have lost their candour and the nights are endless.
The ruined foundations of your dreams with her,
spur you on in search of why she deserved such cruelty.

But you wonder, do you really want a reason for her suffering?
Or to find some logic, for why yours should have to continue.
Offering fresh sacrifice you ask the priests and they solemnly say,

"The answers you seek can be found atop the hills that claw at the morning star
But be prepared, you may not be able to leave behind what you find."

Pausing
your ascent
you remember.

The sound
of her
voice.

The gentle
touch of
her fingers.

Whispered
trysts
until dawn...

*grido di dolore*

That life is gone, you reach the peak and your eyes dart in search,
where are the answers? What does an oracle look like?
Then you begin to notice, the regular deafening crashes of the wind.

This is the beating heart of Chaos,
it was here before the gods and will outlast them.
In a universe where stars explode and planets collide,
there was never an explanation
for what happened there.
No fate to justify your loss.

Your cry of anguish
is caught by the wind and lost
in these hills.