O'death - Bowery Ballroom Dec 08
Having never heard of them since moving to the US I was automatically intrigued by this group named, O'death.
I heard they look something like pirates and at some point the drummer starts slaying the drums with chain instead of sticks. Thus feeding my intrigue!
I would call their sound (by the way I'm terrible at genres) Hillbilly... indie... folk. Its fast and crazy and the on stage antics are extremely entertaining. And David the drummer does actually use chains instead of sticks in some songs! Gabe on the Banjo wore a gospel gown.
If they come to a town near you be sure to check them out. Its good fun with a hint of twang!
Im sure you aussies will hear of them soon if you haven't already.
O'Death
At times it sounds morose or contemplative, but underneath the melancholy is a gospel fervor—bashed from paint buckets, banjos, guitars and anything else in kicking distance—that defines their sound. Since 2007’s buzzed-about Head Home, the quintet, which contains vocalist/guitarist Greg Jamie, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Gabe Darling, fiddle player Bob Pycior, bassist Newman and drummer David Rogers-Berry, has evolved the possessed americana-meets-gypsy-punk of recent years into a more urgent, unrelenting celebration of life, death and everything in between.
For their latest album, the musically diverse Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skins—which O’Death coproduced with Alex Newport (Two Gallants, the Locust)—they’ve recreated their live fervor in the studio. And although it may be the same lineup, the band that plays on Broken Hymns isn’t the same ensemble that formed in 2003 at college. In that time, they’ve evolved. “After Head Home, we only wrote three songs that year,” says Rogers-Berry. “By the end of that year, I was like, I don’t know if I can do this project. This is making me really crazy and sick and I don’t like it. As soon as we started writing new music again, I was like, That’s why we have this band. Playing music is the only thing that matters to me.”
When frontman Greg Jamie pinches his voice throughout O'Death's third album, he's channeling old, weird dudes whose songs might curl and twang from a remote Appalachian wireless. But he comes out sounding closer to Frank Black, who is also, at this point, old and weird, and might as well be beaming in from an imagined (and just as distant) college-radio station. Either way, no problem. Armed with the Arcade Fire pyro-dynamics everyone finds so addictive these days, the Brooklyn quintet remains as bombastic as you can get while still playing acoustic. The drums help.
