Album Review : O.Children - O.Children
- Written by David Lichfield
Does anyone still listen to the Sisters of Mercy or The Mission? Intercontinental four-piece O. Children certainly seem to, and although touches of breakneck new-wave post-punk melancholia à la Joy Division/Interpol colour their debut album, there's a foreboding, dirge-like feel to the act, whose aesthetic seems three parts 'Tower Of Strength' to one part 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. However, there's certainly enough in their armour to divorce them from accusations of 'sounding a bit like White Lies'. While O.Children's pre-occupation with gloom is no less preposterous, it's conceived with both a dose of tongue-in-cheek charm and a sense of tangible doom seemingly out of reach out those opportunistic, hearse-jumpers.
O. Children is an absurd album. It's packed to the rafters with references to The Bible, death, remorse, forgiveness, loss and suicide. Frontman Tobi O'Kandi (one-time drummer of Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man and formerly of the apparently uncategorisable four-piece Bono Must Die alongside drummer Andi Sleath, who now also forms a quarter of O.C) possesses a warped, almost slowed-down baritone that sounds like an amalgamation of Ian Curtis and Louis Armstrong. The album has one more single in it, tops ('Malo', the string-led heart-swell of an opener - it's title could relate to the name of an ancient Japanese cowboy who bled cement or the name of an ancient Egyptian flower. Either way I think it works). They're named after a Nick Cave number. So far, pretty gothic. The Cure-esque first single 'Dead Disco Dancer' is/was a gem of a single, powered by the best hook of 2009 and is still completely infectious a year after its release. It's also just as invigorating and infectious as the equally dour composition it raises comparisons to - the similarly-titled and vastly underrated 'Death Of A Disco Dancer' from The Smiths' final album.
The album is not, however, the product the two singles have suggested. It disappoints most deeply when it attempts emulations of latter-day indie-disco, new-wave borrowers. For instance, 'Fault Line' and 'Pray The Soul Away' are highly-charged, frenetic, hi-hat heavy yet ultimately impotent, uptempo numbers that fail to convince or sustain interest. It's when O. Children withhold the contemporary genericism that they soar. The charred menace of second single 'Ruins' denys us of its chorus until 80% of the way in, and when it does finally surface, after a particularly intense breakdown ('with a GUN in my hand!') it makes for a truly cathartic moment.
Otherwise, there are moments of almost sunny restraint on the album - the mid-tempo strumming and comforting lyricism of 'Ezekiel's Son' aren't particularly gothic at all, despite that title and the acquired taste of O'Kandi's tones. Meanwhile, 'Radio Waves' is saved from accusations of predictability by its incorporation of a sax-led, almost free-jazz passage. 'Heels' carries a trebly, arpeggiated synth-line which helps form a blinding soundscape which evokes 'Decades' by Joy Division, but unfortunately it falls short of its superior's emotional weight by a collosal degree, lacking the sense of real desperation fuelling the darker end of introspective music. Problematically for O.Children, within music of a more 'morbid' nature, the idea that it's architects somehow 'meant' what they were communicating seems to lend weight to the notion of creative potency - see Kurt, Ian, Richey and countless other artistic casualties.
Despite the bleak nature of O. Children, it's almost so overblown that it feels like it lacks sincerity somewhat. There's nothing that strikes as being particularly personal, yet it doesn't feel like a hollow pisstake either. The gothic cliches seem humourously knowing without cheapening the final proposition. 'Don't Dig', the album's finale, is reminiscent of the poem 'Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep' re-imagined by a half-serious, doom-laden yet credible combo, more than aware of their own silliness. Fans hoping for an album riddled with similarly accessible, intoxicating melodies showcased in 'Dead Disco Dancer' and its excellent b-side 'Dead Eye Lover' (regrettably not included here) will be disappointed, but as a not-entirely soul-bearing collection, it comes with approval.