Of Asaph, an indie folk collective of sorts from Michigan, are adept at crafting fleshed out compositions that are earthy, cinematic, and ear-pleasing. The methods are stylistically unconventional, yet appealing at the same time. The closest thing I can think of to compare Of Asaph to is a project called The River Empires based out of the Pacific Northwest. TRE is the side project of Falling Up’s Jessy Ribordy and The Dear Hunter’s Casey Crescenzo, which mixes bluegrass and ambient cinematic folk into a soundtrack for a hypothetical screenplay, written by Ribordy. The Castles, The Tower, The Trees, The Branches is structured much like a movie soundtrack. If Wes Anderson and Peter Jackson ever collaborated they might hire a band like this.

“A Tower In My Heart” is one of the crowning achievements of the record, acting as a centerpiece of sorts for Act I (of III). A well executed folk-rock prologue gets things moving and aligns our minds to Of Asaph’s expansive, open-ended paradigm. The somewhat unexpected crunch of the electric guitar coupled with sleigh bells and ethereal female vocals form a chilling climax that will move you the most if you’re listening to the record straight through. Sometimes things get a bit more dissonant and weird, but the band warned me this would happen before getting into the music. Besides, you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t open to something different and weird, right? I didn’t think so. But if you don’t think you’re open to weirdness, I implore you to not close your mind because of this diatribe I just went on.

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Act II’s “Begging the Tree” showcases yet another facet of the band – warm guitars coupled with xylophone and Enya-like vocals (minus the layering). It’s a nice summery vibe that’s a bit more relaxed than how huge “A Tower In My Heart” sounded. If every track sounded like Act I, I’d be mentally exhausted before the halfway point of the album.  “Surrounded by Wolves” has a minimal intro that made me snap to attention abruptly for some reason. The accompanying piano and string section reminds me of a Sleeping at Last instrumental – a very high compliment if you know me and my tastes!

Act III sounds like it should be the conclusion to the story the album is trying to tell. In fact, if I had no prior knowledge of what the order of the Acts were intended to be and someone had played me clips from them at random I probably would have been able to pick out this one as being the conclusion. I found the three songs to be a little more similar to one another than the ones in the prior two Acts but that’s just me.

Of Asaph is brewing a storm of creativity in that state up north (to us Ohioans). You best pay attention, no matter where you’re from.

One last thing – each track has it’s own artwork. That’s pretty cool.

Score: 4/5

Of Asaph has the album posted on Noisetrade. Check out their Facebook too.