Since losing guitarist James Griffiths at the beginning of the year, obe have been on a search for a new gunsligning superstar. However, that hasn’t stopped the remaining three going in to the studio to start work on their debut full length record. ‘Standard Fog’ / ‘I Am The Cheese Baron’ (‘Standard Cheese’) are the first fruits of those sessions.
What they have given us is two ‘tracks’ that hang together as one piece of music; two movements if you will. The first, ‘Standard Fog’, opens in typically bludgeoning style before dropping in to a section that I can only really describe as, well, funky. It grooves and it struts before again descending in to the crushing riffage that we expect from these boys, a nice deviation from the norm.
After the pure sonic assault of the climax to ‘Standard Fog’, the gentle segue in to ‘I Am The Cheese Baron’ is a welcome respite but if you know OBE you’ll already know that this isn’t going to last long. What surprises though is again the sheer groove of what comes next, bass player Greg Abes has really come to the fore here and lays down a solid and swaggering platform for drummer Dan White and remaining guitarist Chris Pickering to smash shit up over the top.
In all a fine taster of what is to come and a great indication that obe have started to spread their wings and evolve from the hugely entertaining but maybe slightly ‘normal’ (if that’s really the right word) post rock of their earlier outings. Bring on the album!
Available as a free download on Bandcamp from May 28th 2012.
Posted by Dan.
