Review: Winona Oak plunges into the ‘Void’ with new EP

Woven with a tantalizing darkness, Winona Oak‘s Void EP squeezes the heart raw. The Swedish artist decorates six tracks with real sorrow, as she reels from her mother’s death and gathers up the remnants of her heart. “I’d happily die with you by my side,” she heaves with the soul-crusher “If I Were to Die,” the stunning centerpiece to the project. The tragedy she felt courses in her veins, spilling onto the record with performances that rip bones from the ribcage. “I wish I was someone with good memories,” she pleads in “Who Would I Be.”

Void rattles the earth on which Winona Oak walks. Her words etch themselves on the heart, gravestones that harbor the most lonesome aspects of human existence. “I’m still wearing my bulletproof vest in the inside of my chest,” she admits with “Fire Escapes.” It’s a cathartic experience, both for Oak herself and the listener, as they may be forced to confront their own encounters with grief and/or their impending death. Oak focuses attention on the intricacies of the grieving process, through the heart-rending aftermath to anger and finally all-consuming sadness.

Winona Oak speaks openly about her pain in a way that sears onto the brain. Her Void EP arrives as among the year’s most raw, most authentic, and most deliriously affecting releases. She wears her scars proudly, and by the final song’s end, you may be forever shifted on your axis.

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