Will Schube only believes in the God of Death
There should be something inherently wrong about an Appalachian folk revival band coming from Brooklyn. It should reek of the same preciousness so prevalent in that borough, with its artisanal everything and chronic gentrification. But, for some strange reason, O’Death doesn’t seem like any of this. The Brooklyn barnstormers make really good music, and it turns out that good music is a pretty solid trump card. I first became acquainted with the band when they released Outside in 2011, and listened to that album fairly relentlessly for a couple of months. As is wont to happen with the overwhelming accessibility of the internet age, I forgot about Outside until the band awoke from hibernation to announce their latest record, Out of Hands We Go.
Outside brought a sort of cleanliness to the band’s ramshackle state of being, but the forthcoming record’s first single, “Wrong Time”, places a value on low fidelity aesthetic; a move I have to imagine is in response to the hyper clean folk pop stylings of festival headliners and touring troubadours alike. “Wrong Time” bashes and raves—drums go flying across the room—while the whole affair is somehow steadied by a subtle maraca. The track is a romp in the truest sense of the word—it swaggers and leans, tilts and swerves. Greg Jamie’s voice is perfectly worn, carrying the weight of a three year silence. “Wrong Time” sounds about ready to explode, constantly on the verge of teetering, but the band somehow maintains a state of calm before bursting into triumph—resulting in the sort of catharsis those Mumford boys wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
