Osi And The Jupiter: Upcoming Album ‘Larvatus’ Explores a Syncretic American Folk Identity

In the Latin of antiquity, the word “larvatus” carries a shiver of meanings. It can mean to be masked or disguised, but also to be bewitched, as if by a spirit. Its root, larva, is a ghost. It is a word heavy with the unseen, with the presence of what lurks just beyond the veil. And it is the chosen title for the new album from Osi And The Jupiter, a musical project that has, for nearly a decade, made its home in that very space between the visible and the spectral.

Hailing from the shadowy forests of Ohio, the band, led by multi-instrumentalist Sean Kratz, is preparing to release ‘Larvatus’ in late July. The album’s first seeds were sown during the profound uncertainty of 2020 and 2021, a period of global anxiety that has indelibly marked the recording. The result is not simply a collection of songs, but an act of resilience, a search for refuge and healing in a world that felt, for a time, irrevocably in flux.

‘Larvatus’ arrives as the culmination of a long, winding journey—both artistic and spiritual. It is an album that navigates the complex, haunted legacy of American folk traditions and the depths of personal grief to create a work of quiet, formidable power. It is a sound that, like its title, is at once masked in layers of atmosphere and startlingly, authentically true.

Osi And The Jupiter: The Heart of the Project

To truly grasp the music of Osi And The Jupiter, one must first understand its name. It is not a reference to some forgotten myth or pagan deity, but a living memorial to founder Sean Kratz’s two German Shepherds, Osiris and Jupiter.

In interviews, Kratz has been clear that this was a conscious choice, one made because the project was exceptionally personal and meaningful to him. He has described it as “the embodiment of my spiritual journey,” a journey he chose to name not after a grand, mythic concept, but after his family.

This decision has become even more poignant following the deaths of both dogs—Osiris in 2022 and Jupiter in 2023—which has imbued the project’s name, and its inherent melancholy, with the tangible weight of love and loss.

This foundation in the profoundly personal serves as a kind of ethical anchor, setting the project apart from the more abstract and often ideologically fraught landscape of its designated genre. Where much of neofolk engages with grand, impersonal histories and mythologies—fertile ground for political posturing—Osi And The Jupiter’s music is rooted in a specific, lived, emotional truth. The palpable “ache” and “longing” that critics have noted in their sound feels earned, stemming not from a borrowed historical angst but from a universally relatable source of grief.

When the band first emerged with its 2016 debut, ‘Halls of the Wolf,’ this personal core was draped in the sonic garb of Nordic folk. Early albums like ‘Uthuling Hyl’ (2017) and ‘Nordlige Rúnaskog’ (2019) were rich with what was described as “ritualistic ambience,” earning frequent and favorable comparisons to European acts like Wardruna and Forndom. This was music that felt spiritually tethered to a distant, Old World past, creating immersive, cinematic soundscapes that transported listeners to realms of ancient gods and forest gloom. Yet even as they mastered this Northern European aesthetic, a different, more local spirit was beginning to stir in the Ohio soil.

The Unsettled Folk: Navigating a Fraught Genre

Osi And The Jupiter is most often classified as neofolk, a genre as artistically rich as it is culturally complicated. Also known as apocalyptic or dark folk, the style emerged from the experimental fringes of 1980s British post-punk and industrial music. Bands like Death in June, Current 93, and Sol Invictus pioneered a sound that blended acoustic instrumentation with synthesizers and a thematic preoccupation with pre-Christian European paganism, romanticism, occultism, and a deep-seated anti-modernity.

Since its earliest days, however, the genre has been shadowed by controversy. Foundational acts became associated with far-right politics and fascist aesthetics, using ambiguous references and provocative imagery that straddled the line between artistic transgression and genuine ideology. Scholars have termed this phenomenon “apolitical” or “metapolitical fascism,” a strategy wherein extremist worldviews are propagated through cultural and aesthetic means rather than overt political action, making the scene a difficult one for outsiders—and insiders—to navigate. The pervasiveness of this “image problem” is such that fans online actively debate the political leanings and associations of bands within the scene, including Osi And The Jupiter, illustrating the fraught terrain listeners must traverse.

Yet, this is not the whole story. In recent years, a significant counter-current has risen within neofolk, with a growing number of artists actively working to reclaim folk traditions, pagan spirituality, and nature reverence for revolutionary, anti-racist, and inclusive ends. Major acts like the Norwegian band Wardruna, for instance, have been explicit in their disavowal of the far-right’s co-option of their shared cultural heritage, publicly denouncing those who would use Norse culture to promote hatred.

It is into this contested landscape that Osi And The Jupiter speaks, but with a distinctly American accent. While their early work shared an aesthetic with their European counterparts, their geographic and thematic center of gravity has steadily shifted, pulling them away from the genre’s uniquely European controversies and toward a deeper, more complex American identity.

The Ghosts of ‘Appalachia’: A Deeper American Root

The band’s artistic pivot became undeniable with the release of their 2020 EP, ‘Appalachia.’ Critics noted a conscious turn away from the “tribal, Wardruna-like elements” of their past toward a sound infused with an “Americana tinge” and a more direct, singer-songwriter sensibility. For Kratz, this was an intentional homecoming. “Appalachia, these hills,” he said in an interview, “have a mythical and old calling to them.”

This turn toward ‘Appalachia’ is more than a mere change of scenery; it is a profound engagement with one of America’s foundational and most misunderstood musical traditions. The romantic myth of ‘Appalachian’ music as a pristine time capsule of Scots-Irish ballads has long been dismantled by historians. The reality is far more complex and quintessentially American: it is a syncretic music, a cultural melting pot where the fiddles and ballad forms of British and Irish immigrants fused with the rhythms, percussive traditions, and, crucially, the instrumentation of African Americans.

No instrument symbolizes this fusion more powerfully than the banjo. With its origins in West African instruments like the akonting, the banjo was brought to America by enslaved peoples and became a cornerstone of Appalachian music, its singular rhythm transforming the sound of the region when paired with the European fiddle. The inclusion of the banjo on ‘Larvatus,’ most notably on the track ‘I Am The Howling Mountain,’ is therefore a significant artistic statement. A German review of the album singled out the instrument’s appearance, praising its “deeply moving, longing drama” that is far removed from any modern caricature.

By embracing the true, syncretic history of Appalachian music—a history symbolized by the banjo—Osi And The Jupiter implicitly subverts the very narratives of racial and cultural purity that have plagued the European neofolk scene. It grounds their work not in a fantasy of a homogenous, pre-Christian Europe, but in the authentic, complicated, and mixed-heritage story of America. This fusion of their established “Nordic” atmosphere with the sounds of a uniquely American region carves out a defensible and singular space for the band, one built on historical reality rather than ideological myth.

Unmasking ‘Larvatus’: A Ritual for a World in Flux

‘Larvatus’ is the album where these two streams of the band’s identity—the mystical, atmospheric echoes of the North and the earthy, story-driven folk of ‘Appalachia’—finally and fully converge. It is described by their label, Eisenwald Records, as both a “return to the band’s earlier, more mystical sound” and a “fusion of Nordic folk melodies and Americana storytelling.” This is not a regression but a synthesis. The old textures, refined over two years of work and enriched by the stunning cello of longtime collaborator Kakophonix, are now grounded in a distinctly American journey.

The album’s core themes, articulated by the band, are the passage of time, the fragility of existence, the quiet power of nature, and, above all, healing. Kratz summarizes the album’s concerns as “life, death, rebirth,” “magic,” and the feeling of “being bewitched by nature.” This intention is borne out in the music’s narrative arc.

The official tracklist maps a journey from the ritualistic drones of ‘Saged Incantations’ and the gothic foreboding of ‘A Dark Carriage Led By Blind Men,’ through the percussive, transitional ‘Passage,’ and into the celebratory folk of ‘Snake Healer.’ This track introduces the band’s newest member, Elyse Hirsch, on bass and backing vocals, cementing the live trio’s dynamic.

The album continues into the epic, cinematic territory of ‘Wild Host’ and the deeply American sound of ‘I Am The Howling Mountain,’ before descending into the sorrowful, “hopeless mood” of ‘Promethean Gallows’ and finally emerging into the “glimmer of hope” offered by the closing track, ‘Lurking Beneath the Pines.’

This is music intended as a “soundtrack for those seeking comfort,” a mission the band members describe in deeply personal terms. Kakophonix calls the work “very cleansing,” while Hirsch finds it “very grounding.” For Kratz, who speaks openly about his own struggles with depression, the album is a vessel for collective healing. It is a quiet ritual for a noisy world.

‘Lurking Beneath the Pines’: A Visual Meditation

Further extending the album’s immersive world, the band recently released a video for the closing track, ‘Lurking Beneath the Pines.’ The single, which represents the “glimmer of hope” in the album’s narrative, is given a visual treatment that is both simple and profound. The video follows Sean Kratz on a solitary walk through a dense, verdant forest and along a misty, atmospheric shoreline. There are no narrative theatrics, only a quiet, meditative focus on the interplay between a human figure and the vastness of the natural world.

Shot with a patient, observant eye, the camera captures light filtering through ancient trees and fog rolling over the water, visuals that perfectly mirror the song’s layered, atmospheric sound. By placing a lone wanderer within these landscapes, the video becomes a powerful visual metaphor for the album’s central themes: the search for solace, the process of healing, and the spiritual grounding found in the quiet majesty of nature. It is a fittingly contemplative visual for a song, and an album, that offers a connection to something deep and elemental.

A Midsummer Ritual in the Mead Hall

Just last week, on the Fourth of July, the conceptual framework of ‘Larvatus’ found its physical form. In the Viking-inspired hall of Brimming Horn Meadery in Milton, Delaware, Osi And The Jupiter took the stage as part of the Dark Folk Festival, a gathering that served as the meadery’s eighth-anniversary celebration. The event felt less like a standard concert and more like a summit for the American neofolk scene, a rare convergence of some of its most compelling voices.

Sharing the bill with fellow travelers Blood and Sun, Nechochwen, and Sunken Stag, Osi And The Jupiter’s performance was a powerful translation of the album’s themes into a communal experience. The setting was potent: a space dedicated to an ancient craft, filled with people drawn to a sound that seeks to reconnect with a sense of the timeless. Here, the music’s exploration of nature, healing, and American mythos was not just an artistic statement but a shared, lived ritual.

The festival was a powerful demonstration of the growing, vibrant community that has formed around this music, one that gathers not in arenas, but in mead halls and forests, seeking a different kind of communion.

Conclusion

Against the backdrop of a modern world filled with strident debate and anger, the work of Osi And The Jupiter stands apart as an essential refuge for reflection. Theirs is not a music of pronouncements, but of quiet invitations. It functions, as a critic aptly noted, as a “quiet kind of company” for the listener.

With ‘Larvatus,’ the band has crafted its most profound statement to date. By weaving together the personal grief that gives the project its heart, the complex cultural history of their homeland, and a spiritual-not-political mission of healing, they have created a work that feels both timely and timeless. The album’s title, in the end, proves to be the perfect metaphor. This is music that, while masked in layers of haunting atmosphere, ultimately unmasks a resilient and authentic heart. It is a bewitching sound that asks for nothing more than stillness and attention, offering in return a connection not to a contested, idealized past, but to the deep, quiet truths of the self and the soil.