Upon All the Living and the Dead
Oaksenham is the band’s second studio album. Recorded and mixed in 20011-2012. in “S’HARMONY” studio. Sound director: Arman Avetisyan. Mastering: Sergey Gasparyan. Released in 2017. in digital format on the Bandcamp platform. Art design of the cover by Artashes Stamboltsyan.
Composition of the group: Vahagn Papayan: bass guitar, Ashot Korganyan: percussion, Vardan Gasparyan: electric and classical guitar, Vardan Harutyunyan: keyboards, Aram Asatryan: violin.
In contrast to the first album, in this case Oxenham has abandoned the extensive use of classical instruments. Only in one composition (Moonage) old friends Valery Tolstov (flute) and Andranik Kochar (bassoon) came to help the group. In the album, the group turns to the song genre for the first time. The lyrics of the songs were written by Vardan Gasparyan (Snow) and Vahagn Papayan (Musa). Both songs were performed by Shushan Petrosyan, who also had significant financial participation in the recording of the album.
The name of the album is taken from the last sentence of James Joyce’s story “The Dead”, which concludes the series “The Dubliners”. “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
As with the first album, there is no clear programmatic concept, but on an associative level the tracks are connected by themes of winter, death and spiritual sunset. Rejecting the classical instrumentation, the group nevertheless remains faithful to the principles of the symphonized composition of the music. Musical themes and motifs are often interspersed between works. Thus, the composition Maid in Fugue is a fugue on one of the themes of Winter Maid. The final Afterdeath Fantasy begins with phrases from the opening Death Penalty.
Tracklist:
- Death Penalty
- Winter Maid
- Storm in the Crown
- Snow
- Oakwood
- Moonage
- Adventures of the Violet
- Maid in Fugue
- Muse
- Afterdeath Fantasy