Review: Oh Hiroshima – And The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter
Oh Hiroshima have always had a knack for balancing vulnerability and power, and their record “And The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter” is no exception. The title, lifted from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, sets the tone: this is music for a world that feels increasingly barren and confusing. Yet, for all its bleakness, “And The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter” is not an album without light. Songs like “Tree of Life” and “Angelos” cut through the gloom with wondrous melodies and a sense of hard-won hope, ras a remainder that even in the darkest nights, there are moments of beauty worth fighting for.
Musically, Oh Hiroshima continue to refine their sound, this time with a broader instrumental palette that includes keys, reeds, brass, and strings. The production is ambitious and the arrangements lush, yet sometimes with a subtle hint of heavyness. The opener “Servant of All” introduces the expanded arsenal with a mix of rhythm and melody, while “Meridian” and “Broken Sunlight” showcase the band’s ability to oscillate between groovy rock and crushing noise. The inclusion of vocals on several songs is a welcome evolution, adding a new dimension to Oh Hiroshima’s cathartic post-rock template.
Yet, for all its strengths, the album sometimes struggles to maintain momentum. There’s a sense that Oh Hiroshima are still finding their footing with this new approach, and while the album coheres into a satisfying whole, a few songs feel like they’re treading water rather than pushing forward. The emotional highs don’t always reach the stratospheric levels of their best work, and the album’s reliance on its central metaphor can make it feel a touch repetitive at times.
What saves “And The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter” from being just another solid post-rock record is its ambition and its heart. This is an album that grapples with big questions and does so with a rare combination of realism and idealism. It’s not perfect, but it’s honest, and in a genre that can sometimes feel like it’s running in place, that counts for a lot. The band’s willingness to experiment and their refusal to shy away from the darker corners of the human experience make this a record worth spending time with, even if it doesn’t always hit the mark.
