O’Death – Broken Hymn’s, Limbs and Skin

As he stood and watched, blinking at the foot of the stairs, he muttered into his dripping beard.

Oh Christ.

From his forehead a mixture of blood and sweat dropped over the floor, mixing with the beer, spit and tobacco. The smell was hideous. In the darkened corner, a carny swayed to and fro, half elated, half scared, blinking in disbelief before spinning into a heap at the foot of the stage. The band continued, working themselves into a frenzy, song after song. Their hearts pounded. Fiddles scrapped, cymbals crashed, banjos plucked and voices screeched.

Christ.

They don’t understand.

They can never understand.

This is mania.

Madness.

Tomorrow, a mile down the road, they would take the cold and starless sky again. This was all they knew. It was all they could do. They had been on this land to long. It was coming to an end. It was going to be bloody.

Welcome to the world of O’Death. It’s not a cheery place, by any stretch of the imagination. On this, their third full length record, Greg Jamie and his motley band do their level best to claim the role of the house band in a Cormac McCarthy novel. Heavy with imagery, O’Death seem to mix bluegrass, diy punk and legs apart rock in equal measure, adding up to a relentless and full on assault, which barely lets up throughout it’s 14 songs. While there are moments of calm, they are few and far between. The shrill sound of the fiddle, and Jamie’s lead rasp begin to wear thin pretty quickly. The only real let up is ‘Angeline’, which is pleasant enough, but one can’t help thinking of bands who do the same shambolic, rawkus take on Americana so much better (I’m thinking of Port O’Brien here).

While I can imagine that in a sweaty, dark venue O’Death would be a force to be reckoned with, on record the ideas are spread to thinly, and the inability to contain their urge for a turbo-charged hoedown is their undoing.
34%

O’Death on MySpace