Ohana
Dead Beat
8 Track, LP (2008, Imperative Residence)
Related: Ohana.
It’s tempting (although perhaps not particularly useful) to compare Ohana to My Disco. Not because the two bands sound similar (they do, but not in any meaningful way), but because they seem to both be drawing from the same pool of influences, anchored at one end by Jeff Mueller and at the other by Steve Albini.
Now with their second album Dead Beat, Ohana have taken a similar turn to the one My Disco took on Cancer, forgoing dissonance (though not completely) for a leaner, more precise approach. This change of MO is apparent right from the intro of opener ‘Four on One’, which overlays a locked-groove rhythm section with a glittering, repetitive guitar figure and Will Farrier’s semi-spoken vocals. The chaos of Weak Wrists has been reigned in – right in – and the result is a much more focused and intense Ohana.
Repetition plays a large role in Dead Beat. There’s a hypnotic constancy to songs like ‘Bad Credit Good Posture’ and ‘They Scoundrels’; bass and drums rarely divert from their course while the twin guitars of Farrier and Flyn Mckinnirey interweave a deliciously angular scree. These bare-boned arrangements are brought into sharp focus through the record’s stark production, which comes courtesy of Neil Thomason (formerly of Ricaine, a band to whom Ohana owe a certain debt).
Of note, too, is the album’s brevity. Eight tracks, 26 minutes. You’ve hardly settled into your beanbag or armchair or whatever before Dead Beat is done and dusted. Again, My Disco comes to mind. But it’s unfair (and grossly inaccurate) to paint an image of Ohana as dwelling in the shadow of that Albini-worshipping trio – Dead Beat is the sound of a band coming into their own, in their own time, and on their own terms.
by Adam D Mills
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