Hen Ogledd – DISCOMBOBULATED
Hen Ogledd's latest album, focused on life, death and rebirth sways more into the meandering rather than the conclusive, leaving things feeling somewhat stunted
Both life cycles and natural cycles – and how the two intersect – are key themes on Hen Ogledd’s latest album, DISCOMBOBULATED. It makes sense, then, that a sprawling exploration of life and humanity would begin with the voice of a child – that of one of the band member’s own children – reciting a poem about the natural world. Calls of 'Children rise up' and 'Youth lead the change' and pointings to the influence of Eastern philosophy follow on Scales will fall, with mentions of Saṃsāra – a Sanskrit word used in Buddhism and Hinduism referring to the cycle of life – and references to 'karmic weight'.
The Eastern influence continues on the near-20-minute-long epic Clear pools, with the sound of a sitar just after the halfway mark while lyrics spiral back to that sense of cyclicity ('Flow, letting go / Of everything that held you down / Through, start anew'). It’s unsurprising that on an album so focused on life, death and rebirth many of its tracks allude to some sort of ending, simply in the track titles alone. However, the album sways more into the meandering rather than the conclusive – perhaps an observation on the unpredictability of life itself, but nevertheless leaving things feeling somewhat stunted.
Listen to: Scales will fall, End of the rhythm