Track Premiere: GoldenOak “Poet And The Painter”

From the opening finger-picked introduction it’s pretty clear that ‘Poet and the Painter‘ is going to be a nice track – and then the sibling vocals of  Zak and Lena Kendall come in and you’re just blown away by their incredible harmonies.  And then the band comes in and makes ‘Poet and the Painter ‘ a perfect piece of Portland folk-rock.GoldenOak have gone through some changes recently, with Lena and Zak reforming the band after a short hiatus with bassist Mike Knowles and drummer Jackson Cromwell.  It allowed for a period of reflection on where the band should be going, as Zak says “with the original lineup, we were very much a four-piece group. Everybody had similar roles in the band and there was not really much of a lead, per se. As the band evolved and those two bandmates left, Lena and I kind of sat down and said, ‘What we were doing is changing up, but what’s staying the same is our relationship to each other, our musical journey as siblings.’ I think with this music we’ve kind of settled into that role. We’ve learned to really understand and work with each other, write together more, bounce ideas off each other.”

So, a new direction for GoldenOak, but it’s reassuring that when the music sounds this good then they are clearly on the right path.