Ohana - Dead Beat (Album)
Sometimes, less really is more. Dead Beat, the second full-length album from Wollongong’s Ohana certainly adheres to this theory. It’s short. It has eight tracks and it just clocks in at twenty-six minutes. But nothing within those twenty-six minutes is without specific purpose.
Dead Beat explores the possibilities of space and texture through minimalist composition and concise performance. From bare landscapes to clashes of raw sounds, angular chords to swirling riffs, Ohana achieve an impressive array of shapes, complexities, angles and depth perception. On End Fabric Indefinite the strong industrial tone of the main guitar creates a sense of openness with its dissonant chords and tight, repetitious rhythm. This sense of space is filled through the addition of a clashing, second monotone guitar line. At various points throughout the album, instruments drop in and out, pushing and pulling, changing the dimension and feel.
There is a purposeful disjointed feel to the songs that creates a tension and release interplay. Instruments, sections and time signatures change. Structurally, many of the songs on Dead Beat are made up of short, layered patterns. Seemingly erratic, never does it feel like the control has been lost. This is purposeful manipulation. When Things Come Alive is deliciously mathy; a weaving of short, complex, splintering drum patterns, heavy-handed bass lines and off-kilter guitars. The math-rock feel of Battles and Mew is here, only a lot more minimalist.
A sense of order and precision is carried through each of the eight songs, yet a strong emotional sense still manages to be conveyed. Opening track One on Four is sparsely layered with an angular guitar riff and sharp, stop/start drum patterns and bass line. The control of these instruments forms the most rigid of beds for the rawness of Will Farrier’s energy-bleeding vocals. At times unmelodic, yelping, strained, and even Battles-esque in the odd falsetto moments, the balance between these vocals and the mechanics of the instrumental layers is where the emotion of the songs lie.
Sharp. Ordered. Controlled. Precise. Dead Beat is as technically impressive as it is sonically diverse. Sometimes, less really is more.
