Album Review | 'Resilience' 

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In its latest five-song EP, “Resilience,” Wandering Oak packs a lot of musical moments into more than 40 minutes. The Rochester metal trio is thoughtful with its sonic barrage, balancing pummeling blast beats with guitar riffs that call back to ’80s classic melodic metal acts such as Iron Maiden. Robert Bruce Pollard’s versatile voice shapeshifts from deep growls and primal black metal screams to an operatic tone similar to Serj Tankian of System of a Down.

Released on February 2, the EP opens unabashedly with the 11-minute epic “To Lir They Fell.” The song has a busy construction, but the band is in no rush as it gives each musical idea time in the limelight to develop.

“A Florid Grain” distills heavy metal in acoustic instrumentation with whispered tones before the song gets whisked away by a progressive whirlwind of throat-shredding caterwauls and fittingly indulgent guitar solos.The title track’s blistering rhythms, paired with enigmatic and chameleon-like vocals, make for a heavy occult banger that’s as mercurial as it is technical.

The towering presence of Wandering Oak’s rhythm section can’t be overlooked, either. Throughout the EP, drummer CW Dunbar and fretless bassist Deidre House lay down the primal soul of the music with the essential precision on which Pollard’s performance depends.

On “Resilience,” the band has reduced the folk-like strains prevalent in the 2019 album “Passage Elemental” — without losing any of its mystical sensibilities.

Because of Wandering Oak’s devotion to melodic ideas in a genre that doesn’t always emphasize such attributes, “Resilience” is an excellent introduction to heavy metal and its more visceral aesthetics.

Daniel J. Kushner is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].