Half a dozen screens of Google results failed to provide any enlightenment as far as what an Opulent Oog might be. I’d suspected some sort of obscure cultural reference, perhaps a bit of schoolboy wordplay, but nothing...
But regardless of the origin of his outfit’s name there’s nothing obscure about the sources of front man Nick Holton’s writing inspiration. Take a healthy dose of Dylan, throw in a splash of Cohen, mix with Nick Drake string arrangements and filter through world weary melancholy and this is rather close to what you’d expect to end up with.
A pleasant enough listen as things ramble through twelve ramshackle tracks of late Sunday afternoon garden folk rock, touches of mild psychedelia here and there, and not much to rouse the semi-somnolent listener out of the armchair to investigate details like track titles.
The vocals have a weatherbeaten charm to them, the instrumentation’s on the somnolent side of laid back but there’s a definite charm to an album suited to quiet shady afternoons or late evenings with the lights turned down low.