In the summer at Stonedead Festival, I saw Black Oak County make their UK debut. I didn’t know much about them, and if I’m honest, based on the name I’d half expected something rooted in bluesy hard rock. Not really. They were tougher than that, leaner too, and that day I wrote that the Danes were here to make an impression. My goodness, they did.
Now they are here with album number four, and “Misprint” sounds like a band utterly convinced of what it is. There’s no great mystery to this record, no attempt to reinvent the wheel, but that rather misses the point. Black Oak County deal in big hooks, hard-edged riffs and songs that feel built to hit hardest when there are lights overhead and a room full of people yelling them back. More aggressive than you might think, and certainly more US in flavour than Euro, this is a record with its eyes fixed on the bigger stages.
“Kill the Pain” gets things underway with real force. It is heavier and nastier than some might expect, with a crunch to it that immediately suggests this lot have bigger ambitions than simply being another hard rock band making up the numbers. Then “Rock’n Roll” arrives, and no, it is not the most original thing you will ever hear in your life. So what? Rock music was never meant to be a school exam. It is meant to make you move, and this does.
“Vertigo” is one of the record’s real high points. The vocal absolutely soars here, and Niels Beier has precisely the kind of voice that this sort of music lives or dies by. He can lift a chorus, but around him the lead breaks are special too, the guitars adding colour and class rather than simply piling on volume. There is real skill all over this record, and “Around the Sun” is the sort of song that reminds you of that. Black Oak County are one of those bands where once you’ve seen them live, you spot the little details more clearly. The playing has shape, purpose and confidence.
Every record like this needs texture, and “Starlight” provides it. A slower number, it offers that necessary change of pace without losing sight of who they are. The New Roses do this sort of thing very well, and Black Oak County understand the same trick: pull it back just enough and the heavier moments hit even harder when they return. Then “Kiss & Tell” comes in with a very 90s-sounding solo right at the start, which earns bonus points before it has even properly settled in. The energy is obvious, the harmonies are sharp, and it has that easy confidence that the best hard rock always needs.
“Fade” proves again that these Danes are seriously gifted when it comes to hooks and choruses. Nothing here feels forced. They just seem to understand how to write the sort of refrain that sticks after one listen. “Energy” feels exactly like the title suggests, all pulse and movement, and it is the kind of thing you can instantly imagine reverberating around arenas. That is true of much of “Misprint”, to be fair. These songs do not sound as if they were written for people to politely nod along to with a cup of tea in hand. They are written for volume.
By the time “Sick and Tired” arrives, the record shows another side again. This is not your normal hard rock album at all. There is something edgy and fun about the way Black Oak County go about their business, and they never let things get too neat. “Before I Break” carries that late 90s and early 2000s feel that crops up throughout the album, and that is meant as praise. There is a sense here of the era when bands still believed a huge chorus and a ringing guitar line could carry the world for four minutes.
“Landmine” and “The Shadow” round things out in style, and both feel absolutely made for live performance. Indeed, that may be the key to understanding “Misprint” as a whole. This is not an album interested in subtle reinvention or chasing trends. It wants to swagger. It wants to connect. It wants to sound massive when played through festival speakers. And on “The Shadow” especially, that swaggering rock ’n’ roll spirit is impossible to resist. When I first saw them at Stonedead, I made Black Stone Cherry comparisons, and those still feel apt now. There is the same weight, the same groove, the same sense that beneath the polish there is a band who know exactly how to make a crowd theirs.
As it happens, I’m sat typing this in a Volbeat T-shirt, so I know a little bit about Danish bands ending up taking the UK by storm. Maybe Black Oak County are next. If they were an American band, you suspect they might already be doing it.
That ain’t no “Misprint” either.
RATING: 8.5/10
