Treatment 5Osker |
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Now this is what Punk music is all about! Sincere, heartfelt lyrics that cry out in anger against everyone and everything… beautiful! Weird name though, "Osker?" Hardly veterans of the L.A. scene, Osker's core is made up of two guys barely out of high school as it looks, and so maybe that's why they got so much to bitch about… I know I did! Give 'em about three or four years though and they'll be moving towards that populist mainstream assault on politics and government! In the meantime, "moshworthy" firepower gets delivered straight to your slowly dulling senses, and trust me, it doesn't take long to realize these guys mean business-if not necessarily presented in the most eloquent of manners-"Dying," "Ballad of a Traitor," "Alright,"-taking dedicated aim at hypocritical liars and trash talkers who don't even have the decency to build you up before putting you down! Yes, I'd say there's a little bit of early Rancid within the Osker sound-maybe even traces of early Bad Religion… they bleed every last drop out of this guitar sound as well! If other tunes like "Life Sucks," "Numb Skull," "Fuck Me," and "Shit Face" don't convince you that either these guys have had more than their share of repressed feelings, or that they're in serious need of psychological evaluation-maybe both-but the cool thing is they've broken down to the simplest forms what other bands have disturbingly danced around in dealing with personal issues that by the time you finally get their point, you don't remember where the hell they started out from… or something like that! This guy Devon doing the vocals has that sort of high ranged delivery that goes well with this quickly paced rush of appeals-and totally necessary considering how the guitar tracks are the recipients of some very generous output levels! All in all most of these tunes are short and straight to the point with plenty of deviance replacing what they're lacking in variance… still every now and again we'll get some cool guitar breaks and time changes-"13," "Two Faced," "Asshole"-all I can say is if these guys are this bad at this stage of their career, I'd be afraid to hear what they gotta say five years from now! Smokin' debut though… Epitaph Records: http://www.epitaph.com/ Review By Vinnie Apicella |
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Idle Will Kill
Osker |
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How does a band move from being irresponsibly outrageous and ornery to basically growing up overnight and producing something more befitting of a group that's logged thousands more miles than this still youthful two full albums to their credit and suddenly veteran-styled performance as with "Idle Will Kill?" Surely the maturation process couldn't have set in that quickly? Now I'm not saying that Osker, currently a twosome, doesn't conjure up their fair share of noise and pressure the joints every now and again, just not so often as before. The music's grown as the band, recently of their late teens, now possessing a character that's a combination of flighty Punk anthems, cautious Pop melodies and an inch or two of Postmodern tripping up the past all the while-"Patience," a soft-slow starter that leads into "Strangled," one of the more earnest of the lot, then "Animal," a lyrically emotional slant that's a misleading stray from the title, and "Motionless," a bit of the rougher edged variety, definitely single material and recalling the harmonic balance of a Cheap Trick or Oasis with the more emotive measures of melody mixed urgency of The Watchmen. Most of what we're getting on "Idle Will Kill" fall in a mid-tempo range, always emotional, usually catchy and broadly appealing as they extend their boundaries with an artistically fulfilling display that'll surprise some while undoubtedly spurring Osker's future growth that much further. Epitaph Records: http://www.epitaph.com/ Review by Vinnie Apicella
[va85@columbia.edu] |