One
Ohio Winter
Self-Titled CD
Spirit
Badge Records
Genres: indie rock, emo, ambient
e-mail the
band
Mar 31 - Apr 6 2003 |
Math
rock suggests a very complex sound - knotty rhythms, bending,
reticular guitars, and buried, yet pleasant melodies. One
Ohio Winter seems to fit the bill in concept, but one listen to
this album will assure you that they don't quite stick to any one
style at all.
First off, most of OOW's music is instrumental. Lyrics
appear on only a few of this eponymous album's eleven tracks; the
focus is clearly on the bass, guitar, and drums. But that isn't
really a problem. The band play with such a passion - scaling
hills of both delicate calmness and volatile rawk - that lyrics
are never really craved for. The quiet calmness can be seen in
the proggy emo-styled "30", and even moreso in the ambient
soundscapes of "Cold Fingers" and "J.L.P.".
Meanwhile, their capricious rock style is evident in "Midnight
Monologue" and "Ashamed".
This combination of calmness and energy is pretty nice, but the
album seems to be broken up too much by it. The first half
boasts a lot of the powerful rock material, whereas the second half
has the emo and the ambient parts. This disjunction weighs on
the album's flow a bit, and makes it less of an album you listen all
the way through to, and more of the type of record you pick and choose
from for mixtape purposes.
Altogether, this album may be a little disjointed, but it's still a
very enjoyable debut for a new band out of Bowling Green, Ohio.
85%
Fun Fact: Bowling Green, OH, where One
Ohio Winter are from, is the 1293rd most populous city in the US
(as of 2003)! It's also home to Bowling Green State University!
Wow!
Matt Shimmer [Vitals:
11 songs + 1 hidden, distributed by the
band, released 2002] |