REVIEW: Orsak:Oslo - Silt and Static

For over ten years, Norwegian-Swedish collective ORSAK:OSLO has been honing their craft, delivering progressive post-rock and psych-rock to a dedicated underground fanbase. New album Silt and Static sees them pushing further forward into the bright unknown, with eight tracks that sprawl across genres and capture them at their rawest.

Silt and Static is not a concept album; there is no designated through-line within the tracks. The conception was completely natural, recorded spontaneously onto a rolling tape - and yet just like nature, the tracks weave together to create an ecosystem where harmony and dissonance are equally respected. In some places it blooms, in clean riffs and the steady-beating heart of the drum, and in others it wilts, in atonal fuzz and industrial clatter - but each decision feels purposeful.

It would be easy for a collection of songs recorded at whim to lose steam along the way, but each track ebbs and flows exactly when it needs to. Opening track 082 Biting In demonstrates this masterfully, building slowly off of a simple distorted riff and hi-hat introduction until the track is densely populated. Around the halfway mark it ebbs again, teasing another riff until everything swells once more. It feels like turning a corner to see a breath-taking mountain scene in the distance, and feeling full of hope that you might one day climb it.

That hope is far from the last emotion this album is likely to pull from the listener. With no clear roadmap for the tracks as they were being recorded, what emerged is something that the band describes as their “most honest and emotionally charged record to date”. We see this in the somber and bleak soundscape on 087 Resonance In Ash, where a simple guitar line pulls us heavily through a third of the runtime, interrupted only then by the intermittent drum roll akin to that of a marching band. It’s a track that wouldn’t be amiss on a post-hardcore album, if there was a vocalist around to lend their screeching voice over the top. It sounds like a funeral. As the track inches closer to the end, the guitars build and the drums erupt, cymbals crashing into anger and tumbling into rage. It’s beautiful, and it’s impossible not to feel full of grief as the final guitar notes ring out.

In other places on the album, their psychedelic influences simmer further to the top. Single 083 Petals mixes a pure noughties-rock riff with a shimmering, distorted wall of noise. The droning guitar lines and subtle reverb make it hard not to sway along through the 7-minute run time. That reverb is back on closing track 090 Time Leak, though it’s more subtle here when paired with the blues-y rhythm section. Whilst not a show-stopping end to the album, its simplicity in comparison to the rest of the album is a nice tie-off for the grand and expansive soundscapes on show here.

Silt and Static is a journey through genres, all masterfully deployed by the O:O collective in some of their greatest and most thoughtful work to date – a feat considering the spontaneity of it all. Whether you enjoy wordless world-building, or music that challenges you to feel something, listening to Silt and Static is an excellent way to spend an hour of your time.

Score: 9/10

Silt and Static was released on September 5th 2025 via Vinter Records.

Words: Ellen Lovell

Photos: Orsak:Oslo