It’s been a while since I used the track-of-the-week tag. I guess that’s because there have been plenty of albums worthy of a spell in the spotlight here, and no one track has stood out above the rest. But, today, I’m going to feature a band called Alo̱r that, as far as I can see, has only ever released one single.
Having listened to this and really enjoyed it, some research was called for. Who are these guys? What’s that funny character in their name? And what is the significance of the Oath Breaker title?
The answer to the first question is on the band’s website:
Alo̱r are a new outfit creating alternative indie-folk in Manchester. Having performed on the Manchester local music scene for several years under several different names, this incarnation of the band are set to release their debut single, “Oath Breaker” in May 2024, with plans for an EP to be released at the end of the year.
The band’s website.
The peculiar spelling of the band name, though, is harder to pin down. The ‘o‘ doesn’t seem to be a recognised Unicode character, but the computer renders it without complaint. (I’ve cheated here by typing an ordinary ‘o’ and adding an underscore.) Their Instagram page suggests that ‘Alo̱r’ is old English for ‘alder tree’, but there is no letter ‘o̱’ in Old English, just the plain old ‘o’ that we all know and love. If we search for ‘o̱’, we find references to Native American languages (Mazahua, Choctaw, Nuer, Seneca), but that only seems to take us into the mire of Diminishing Returns.
Perhaps an annotated picture on Alo̱r‘s Instagram page provides a clue. The lyrics of Oath Breaker tell of one who has prayed a thousand times for his benefactor. It was a promise he made. But the chapel is so cold in the winter, and the master never comes. If he can not bear this burden any longer, he will have to break his oath and leave this place. And the picture suggests the exact location: Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. Could the band name be a Cornish word?
The song seems unremarkable at first. It comes in so gently that we are surprised by the intensity of the lyrics. “Touched by the hand of God …”, they say, by way of introduction. These are the words of a holy man who is wrestling with his conscience. And yet, the melody is sweet, the harmonies caressing, the textures heavenly. Halfway through the track, the priest declares “it’s time”, and we must assume he has given up the struggle to serve his lords, both earthly and celestial, broken by the biting cold and the loneliness of his station. And it is then that a mellow trombone transforms the song into an exquisite lament. It is one of the loveliest last 2 minutes I have heard for a very long time, and it fully justifies this track-of-the-week award.
One more thing … Apparently, some two years before he became king, Harold Godwinson (then the Earl of Wessex) was sent from England to France where he helped William, the Duke of Normandy, in a local battle and subsequently made an oath on saintly relics. What was promised then is not known, but it has been suggested that Harold pledged the English succession to William. If that is correct, it may be that William invaded England partly because Harold reneged on his oath when he accepted the English crown. King Harold II of England would be the oath breaker.
Crotchety Man 