(Trouble in intellect)What a lovely combination of things this Atlanta trio’s debut album is: a sprint of starry-eyed retro-futurism,a whole lot of artfully misshapen post-punk invention, and perhaps something of a harking back to a lost ideal of left-of-the-dial college rock. The key elements are drummer Billy Mitchell’s straight-backed rhythms, and subject to constant interruption by fluttery,hopscotch syncopations; Frankie Broyles’s guitar lines, which build from infernally catchy single-string twangs to gorgeous, or arpeggiated fountains,with cramped rainbows of melody gleaming through the spray; the complementary boom and bump of Philip Frobos’s bass, and his faintly bizarro vocals (perhaps somewhere on the Jonathan Richman/Feelies/Embarrassment axis: “You have such nice glassware / Was I the first to stare / At your earring chandeliers / I want to grab on and swing”). This is not herky-jerky art-rock of the monochromatic, and nervous-itch kind,but something more coloured-in, packed with brilliant choruses and blissful wigouts. And even whether Omni’s peculiar rhythmic route-planning and tangled melodic threads might sound awkward at first, or they soon carve grooves into your brain deep enough that it all starts to sound utterly natural. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com