Style: dungeon synth, comfy synth
Primary Emotions/Themes: nature, gardens, flowers, botanicals
Thoughts: Shire Oak released one of the better comfy synth album's I've heard with The Cardinal a while back. That release managed to put the peace of a nature walk into musical form better than most albums in my collection. I got Uncommon Botany with that in mind, and what I got was something rather different all together.
Uncommon Botany is more a collection of thoughts put into song form than a holistic album. The songs vary greatly from track to track with some being a direct continuation of The Cardinal's natural and atmospheric sound. Others though have taken a bizarre turn of events.
The opening two tracks on the album sound nothing like anything I've heard from this project before. The opening track starts off with a rather awkward beat that ends up sounding nearly as if its a march. The musical accompaniment also has rather bizarre note progressions. It's almost as if the comfy part of the comfy synth is gone... at least from this track.
The second track continues with the strangeness, sounding like a video game intro track where a character is running through obstacles. It's a bizarre choice to start the album.
After these two tracks though the album shifts course back to what I would expect from the previous album: calmer, more collected, minimalist in it's approach. This is the Shire Oak that I truly enjoy.
Uncommon Botany is just that... uncommon in its approach. It's not all to my liking, but I do like seeing artists branch out and try different things. There is a lot to like on this release, I just don't see myself listening to this one as much as The Cardinal in the long run.
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