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O'Death - Broken Hymns, Limbs, And Skin
| Thephoenix |
| A theory: present-day hipsters grew up thinking they hated country. Later, during their explorations of underground music, they perceived that what they really hated was Wal-Mart’s vision of country. Hence the “Americana/roots” revival. (We can’t call it a “country revival” because of the redneck overtones.) O’Death, from the rural backwater town of New York City, are a little bit country and a lot more calamitous power-folk. Urgently eerie hollerin’, fiddlin’, and banjo pluckin’ plus the occasional use of hardware-store percussion amalgamate into an unholy hybrid of Carnivale and Deliverance. If some weird sensory muddling would allow you to brush your fingertips across these songs, a splinter-removal kit would prove indispensable. Audacious tempo shifts and phantasmal murder narratives in “Vacant Moan” (a re-recorded version of “Spider Home”) and “Low Tide” complement this alluring wreckage. Makes you wonder how long it’ll be before metalheads start showing up at O’Death shows — if they haven’t already. When it comes to production values, Broken Hymns is a marked improvement from 2005’s self-financed Head Home. Still, songs kinda meant to evoke the 1930s aren’t necessarily better or worse off with snazzier studio treatment....full text |
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| Allmusic |
| Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin isn't as sloppy or uncontained as O'Death's national debut, Head Home, which isn't a bad thing. The playing is tighter and more polished, but they haven't lost any of their manic energy, and in fact this outing is, if anything, even more energetic than Head Home. "Legs to Sin" is as frenetic as anything they've ever done, with Bob Pycior's fiddling driving the band into a frenzy. Greg Jamie's vocals are still almost incomprehensible, and just listening to the track leaves you panting for breath. "A Light That Does Not Dim" shows off the band's punkier side, a supersonic stomper with all the instruments going full-bore, driven again by Pycior's fiddling. "Ratscars" sounds like a sea shanty composed on a Jet Ski; it brings to mind the Pogues jamming with Wall of Voodoo. "Lean-To" is a frenzied babe-I-gotta-leave-you tune, an out-of-control folk-rock number with Jamie delivering a vocal from the edge of a nervous breakdown. But most of Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin is taken at a slower pace, allowing the bandmembers to show off the range of their musical skills. "Mountain Shifts" is a fractured waltz sung by the survivor of an avalanche, with funereal passages interspersed with wild Gypsy fiddling and a boozy shouted chorus. "Home" starts slow and quiet, then grows louder and more intense, full of frightening images of impending death as the singer looks for a resting place where birds won't peck out his dead eyes. "Crawl Through Snow" is the portrait of a man freezing to death -- it alternates between a sparse ghostly banjo and fiddle verse and a shuddering, noisy, Gypsy-flavored frenzy. Jamie's shrieking vocals are full of despair and anger. As the album title implies, the band flirts throughout with death, darkness, and perdition, while churning out an unholy noise that might truly wake the dead....full text |
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| Drownedinsound |
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Coming on strong with all the pent-up mania of Tom Waits or Shane MacGowan, O’Death’s third album positively exudes menace. From the tense, muted banjo strikes on which it opens, to the raucous cries of ‘Lean-To’ that see it out, Broken Hymns, Limbs, And Skin is a dark, twisted, and occasionally glorious listen. Its only flaw is that, at 14 tracks long and with a tendency to lapse in to fiddle-led hoedowns, it all gets a bit; well, a bit exhausting. Anyone who’s caught the troupe at any of their renowned live shows will be well aware of their fiery tendencies. This is bluegrass filtered through hulking great amplifiers – rock; metal; even an element of Romany swing informs their sound, led with gusto by Greg Jamie’s mighty wail. What impresses most in these deliciously dark, imagery-heavy numbers isn’t so much when they’re firing on all cylinders, but rather when they restrain themselves slightly, laying out the sumptuous melodies they’re well capable of without going for the jugular in such a brazen fashion....full text |
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