Genre Analysis: HEAL

      HEAL by Strand of Oaks will never be an album that is easily categorized. Project creator Timothy Showalter looks like something that crawled out of Motorhead, and yet he shreds guitar like Jack White and somehow also has all the sensitivity of James Taylor. His mutation of style places him in multiple different genres, and to actually specify a genre would almost demand the creation of an entirely new and specific one. But if one genre had to be chosen, HEAL could be broadly classified as a folk rock album. It’s general sound, when observed on the surface, fits fairly smoothly into this group. However, Showalter obviously deviates from and recreates this basic template throughout the entirety of HEAL.

            
     Before HEAL, Showalter created music that was more easily identifiable as folk rock. He wrote and performed songs that could be specifically defined and always fit cleanly into a genre, but they weren’t necessarily what he wanted to be writing. In reality, Showalter wanted something like HEAL-something that would reach into the depths of his mind and bring his buried emotions to life. This speaks to the complexity of Showalter as an artist and reveals the convolution of the messages he wanted expressed through HEAL. His previous songs and albums were too inside-the-box; they weren’t complicated and intricate enough to reflect the elaborate originality of his intent; they were packaged molds and Showalter was not a shelf-music artist. This breaking out of a single genre and expanding into multiple others makes HEAL an enjoyable album not only because it’s the exciting first reveal of Showalter’s improved sound, but also because the different genre mash-ups can be extensively explored and contemplated.

            
     Staying true to his folk rock origins, Showalter has guitar and rhythm present on HEAL that sounds like a combination of some of the more rock and roll songs by Mumford & Sons and songs by the band Phosphorescent. He sings about the small town where he grew up and details parts of his childhood and teenage angst, folksy topics that create an informal and quaint aura around HEAL. The ‘rock’ part of folk rock comes into play with Showalter’s faster pace and denser, more deliberate guitar.

            
     In addition to folk rock however, Showalter displays hints of grunge and indie rock in his music, with tones that are tortured and emotional, anguished and unrelenting.  The grunge on HEAL is not so much sonic as it is the genreal ‘vibe’ of grunge. Using Nirvana’s Nevermind as an example, HEAL has songs like “For Me”, “Wait For Love”, and “JM” that echo the agonizing feelings of some of Kurt Cobain’s Nevermind songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Lithium”. All of these songs have tortured, screaming lyrics and sounds that convey emotional torment and pain. When looking at this aspect of the album, Showalter is partially included in the grunge genre ‘in spirit’, so-to-speak, because his songs are intense, but he doesn’t share the heavy, gritty pace of grunge music itself. He merely embraces the message of grunge and embodies it in many of his songs on HEAL. In this way, he takes folk rock and twists it into a folk grunge rock hybrid, with all the tradition of folk, the hardcore sound of rock, and the torment of grunge.

            
     The other genre aspect of HEAL is its indie rock vibe, given through synth beats and layered tones. HEAL resembles the band the War on Drugs firstly in that they both tend to have tangential songs that are longer but build on themselves, creating an escalation of sound. However, HEAL also reflects the sentimentality of the War on Drugs and other similar bands in that genre. The more abstractly emotional, contemplative tone of these bands is found all throughout HEAL in almost every song, even the angry grunge-like ones. In some artistic maneuver, Showalter is able to combine his folk rock sound with a grunge mentality that is somehow as serene and profound in its purity as those indie rock bands that tend to lean towards the sensitive side.

            
     Together, this combination results in something like an indie grunge folk rock genre that seems to be the only way to truly describe HEAL. The expectedness of the folk rock sound gives this album a definite familiarity and makes it feel comfortable, but the unexpected mixing and spinning of multiple different music genres creates an air of mystery and intrigue. It draws the listener in because it is simultaneously new and old, retro with a unique twist; it becomes exactly what the listener wants and anticipates, and then it expands into more. It is throwback without being boring, brand new without being fresh, and fits into so many genres in so many diverse ways that it becomes mesmerizing in how it is all woven together.

            
     Along with this genre mastery and expression comes authenticity, which is probably the most significant point that can be made about HEAL. The way HEAL is constructed is so creative and exceptional, and the messages conveyed through the music are so real, that it is almost impossible to suspect that the album was forced. The content seems as if it could only have come directly from Showalter’s mind because it is so obviously pure and unfiltered. The reason that Showalter was able to discover the mixture of these genres successfully is because it was the only tool he had to reveal and explicitly express his feelings. The complexity of his thoughts could only be channeled through something equally as complex, and thus came HEAL in its patchwork-genre glory. While it pays homage to its original folk rock roots, HEAL definitely expands itself by tapping into many other musical genres and becomes something beyond genre and definition. It results in a meaningful piece of art that is interesting to listeners because of how it stands out. Showalter didn’t just succeed in a creating a genre collaboration within an album; he exceeded achievement and developed a new exclusive genre personal to HEAL.