Send "O'Death " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Hearya |
 I’ve loved O’Death since I first heard their ’07 album, Head Home. Seeing them live only cemented my infatuation with them. They have a unique and dark bluegrass sound, accented by Greg Jamie’s vocals, and their frantic performances are something to behold.O’Death’s third album, Outside, is a gauge of where that band is going in the future. In following up Head Home, O’Death remained consistent with the same formula on their sophomore album, Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin. There were slight modifications, but with such a distinct sound from a young band just building an audience, it wouldn’t have been appropriate to make any detours. In their third release, however, Outside finds the band broadening their sound and taking some chances. The band also had to deal with a serious illness that was dealt to drummer David Rogers-Berry. Rogers-Berry beat Osteosarcoma, a form of cancer, and endured 10 months of chemo and a shoulder replacement. So combined with the pressure of moving their band forward, the quintet was also watching their good friend and bandmate deal with a life-threatening disease....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| O'Death are a New York City-based quintet playing scrappy, Americana-seeped folk songs-- they can be menacing and frantic, or odd and quiet-- in the slapdash spirit of Tom Waits. For O'Death, at least, it's the New York bit that tends to trip people up: It's easy to feel distrustful of (real or imagined) hipster mobs, and to feel proprietary about music as raw and unpretentious as the classic country and folk O'Death mine. And while these days every band that enlists a fiddler gets subjected to an Americana litmus test-- Are they southern? Are they poor? Are they really wearing overalls? Are the overalls real?-- the thing about folk music is that it's impossible to render inauthentic: Inclusiveness is its crux. Most bygone genres are too inextricably tied to their respective times and places to ever really be "revived," so what gets trotted out, instead, is an approximation of a feeling-- and hey, that's just art. For O'Death, the feeling in question is urgency: They've always been revved-up and eager, but Outside, the band's third full-length, is also earnest and persuasive, a collection of intensely personal, intricately assembled folk songs. The best of these tracks plead for your attention: Opener "Bugs" is soft and heartbreaking ("I know that days don't come back, please believe in me," Greg Jamie sings, his voice high and plaintive), unfurling like a lost Elliott Smith track. It's a sentiment that's revived on the heavy, rhythmic "Pushing Out", which contains a line ("This year could last forever, this year could never start") instantly familiar to anyone who's ever had a long, cold, ennui-laden New Year's Day. Most of O'Death's prior releases were about a kind of lunatic energy; Outside is more studied, and its references are broader (besides the Americana they typically pull in, there's plenty of world music at work here, from Balkan folk to Klezmer). The band's 2009 tour was interrupted when drummer David Rogers-Berry was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. After a course of chemotherapy and a shoulder replacement, O'Death returned to play a triumphant set at the Newport Folk Festival the following summer, and that sense of redemption (and optimism) ultimately keeps Outside from ever feeling defeated. Songs that begin forebodingly resolve themselves ("Back of the Garden", "Ghost Head"); the sun rises again; the world is still big and full of sound....full text |
| Liquida |
| I’ve loved O’Death since I first heard their ’07 album, Head Home. Seeing them live only cemented my infatuation with them. They have a unique and dark bluegrass sound, accented by Greg Jamie’s vocals, and their frantic performances are something to behold. O’Death’s third album, Outside , is a gauge of where that band is going in the future. In following up Head Home , O’Death remained consistent with the same formula on their sophomore album, Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin....full text |
| Sequenza21 |
| Indie folk quintet O’Death return with their third album Outside, which sees release next week. It’s their strongest and most affecting work to date, demonstrating the band’s growth from both musical and personal vantage points. The latter lessons were particularly hard won. During their 2009 tour, O’Death drummer David Rogers-Berry was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma. His subsequent treatment regimen included shoulder replacement surgery and chemotherapy. Both grateful for their bandmate’s recovery and perhaps more mindful of life’s fleeting quality, O’Death returned to the studio to create Outside. While no one would wish adversity on a group to improve their music, they’ve clearly made meaning out of the events of the past few years, using the opportunity to record as a catharsis. Songs such as “Bugs” and “Don’t Come Back” wend their way between gorgeous melodies and gritty alt-folk signatures – rustic banjo licks, vibrant violin solos, mandolin flurries, and the occasional sonic smear of distortion – presenting an intriguing ambience. While all of the power and rhythmic drive of their previous work is still evident, there’s also a fragility and even tenderness. The depths of loss are plumbed on the album’s closer, the reflective “The Lake Departed.” But fear not, all isn’t bittersweet; there’s joy to be found here as well. The band is still plenty capable of memorable hooks and gruff yet danceable grooves, such as the sing along and single-worthy track “Pushing Out.”...full text |
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