The Oaks

On their new album Songs For Waiting, The Oaks tie together indie pop complexity, rhythmic depth and a literary reasoning that too many bands leave out of auditory art.

Refreshing as it is fascinating; “Masood” (posted below) pulls together a composite portrait of a teenage friend from Afghanistan, and of Akhmad Shah Masood, an Afghan war hero killed in 2002. Turns out, this is musically, as well as charitably, notable; in 2003, the Oaks’s Ryan Costello sold everything he owned, joined a humanitarian organization and moved to Afghanistan. Costello lived there for two years, working in the Central Afghan mountains with returned refugees, teaching them creative agricultural techniques and becoming fluent in their native language, Farsi. As if all this wasn’t enough, it’s hard to not smile at their use of clapping and the lovable glockenspiel.

Masood