Some of you may be familiar with a specific connection some of us have with Ok Go (a Chicago band with some pretty decent tunes and even better videos) - if you don't hopefully you'll be able to view this:
Xmas Cabaret '08
However today I've been horribly let down by them. I bought their new album "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky". I've only had time to listen to it once through but it is hugely disappointing, and verging on not getting a second listen! Gone are the old straight up pop rock, feet tapping, sing-a-long (albeit annoyingly stuck in your head) tunes of their first two albums such as Cinnamon Lips and the two classics Here It Goes Again and A Million Ways. I would say only two of the fourteen songs (the 15th is a remix) are even comparable to the first two albums - This Too Shall Pass and White Knuckles, yet they'd never be prominent tracks.
Far too many tracks are dominated by trashy guitar effects or inane electro droning. There's a lot more tuneful backing singing, but it doesn't really complement the lead singer like it used to, more often standing on its own and sounding like they're trying to stretch out the track. He sounds like he's been depressed over the last few years, lacking the life of yesteryear. Perhaps when it takes you 5 years to release a new album it takes it toll.
On a bit more reading (wikipedia is wonderful isn't it) it sounds like this is some kind of concept album based on a passage from a book. Perhaps they should have stuck to reading. In the most apt moment on the disc, the first track is entitled 'WTF?'. This is exactly what I imagine will be going through the minds of many Ok Go fans out there.
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Thus concludes my first album review on here - shame it had to be such a negative one. I'll try and review a few more of the albums I come across. I don't claim to be a musical genius (my grade one piano score will testify to that) but I can still tell when I like something or not. I hope some of you will agree, and possibly even more so that some of you will disagree and put me in my place.
In other news I'm off to Rome for 5 days come Saturday on a nice little break from work. Hopefully this will provide me with material for a good few posts to come.
P.S. Still haven't got the shed open
P.P.S. If you hear of any Cambridge-based debauchery, I wasn't involved ;)
