The OaKs Issue #35

Songs For Waiting (self-released)

By Anna Breshears
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 2:53pm

After Ryan Costello returned from a two-year stint working for a humanitarian aid group in Afghanistan, he reconnected with college buddy Matthew Antolick to flesh out ideas for songs about his experiences; the result was 2006’s poignant indie folk record Our Fathers And the Things They Left Behind. Unable to translate the full spectrum of sound from the album to a live setting, the duo added an additional four members. In 2007, the expanded OaKs recorded Songs For Waiting in Costello’s home to maintain the warm, intimate atmosphere suitable to its poetic, richly textured songs. The production on Songs For Waiting is free from needless reverb, delay, or overwrought alterations, allowing for a clean sound with maximum analog ambience, the perfect tenor for such an honest record.

The OaKs’ elegant pieces hint at pop and jazz, with occasional flourishes of traditional music. The band employs trumpet, tambourine, piano, Hammond organ, and bells, but Costello’s articulate guitar and Antolick’s diverse and accomplished drumming remain its musical centerpiece. Costello’s lyrics still reference his travels, though with more distance; he explores themes of love and loneliness, while continuing to pay tribute to those affected by the unwinnable war. In “Masood,” Costello memorializes a young Afghan friend forced to lead the family after his father’s untimely death, singing “Oh, I lie awake thinking of the hope that’s laid on me,” while tambourine, pensive rhythms, and a rolling melody of plucked strings set the melancholy tone.

The OaKs are a band with a conscience, but rather than smack listeners over the head with anti-war messages, they prefer to speak more philosophically via literate lyrics and complex but laid-back instrumentation.