EGGS

"Eggs" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Danish pop/rock act Oh No Ono. After a very promising debut I was anticipating great things from this second album and after listening to "Eggs" it´s no wonder to me that Oh No Ono is considered one of the most unique and innovative young acts in Denmark at the moment.

While the debut showed great promise and Oh No Ono flirted with several genres, the album was still mainly a commercial art rock album. The music on "Eggs" is still unmistakekably the sound of Oh No Ono but the band have developed their sound considerably, making "Eggs" a quite interesting release for fans of art rock with progressive elements. The basis is still melodic and memorable commercial pop/rock but when you take a more than one listen it´s revealed that "Eggs" is much more than just that. The music is multi-layered and there are some experiments with the vers/chorus formula. Nothing too "out there", but still small sections here and there that keep the songs interesting. I´ve read an interview with the band where they said that they sampled all sorts of sounds from nature and put on the album and if you listen with headphones that´s quite obvious. There are 10 tracks on the album and not a single weak one among them. I must admit that I was blown away by the first four songs on my first listen (especially the fantastic "Icicles") and I felt the rest of the album didn´t quite reach the heights of the first four songs. Repeated listens have opened up the album for me though and songs like "The Wave Ballet", "Eve" and "Beelitz" as well as the catchy, fast paced and melodic "Helplessly Young" are now also among the highlights. The vocal performances on the album are definitely worth a mention too. Lead vocalist Malthe Fischer has a very distinct high pitched voice that gives the music a unique sound. The music is hard to define with all the different influences from 80´s pop and new wave, 70´s art rock and funk and 60´s psychadelic rock mixed well together to form a whole. I hear influences from as different artists as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Roxy Music, Duran Duran, Krafwerk, Devo and Suicide, just to mention a few.

The production is fantastic IMO. Grand and well defined. All the different layers work well in the mix.

"Eggs" is an excellent album by Oh No Ono and a great step forward for the young band. The album was initially released on April the 20th of 2009 in Denmark by Morningside Records but will see a US release in January 2010 and a worldwide release in February 2010 handled by The Leaf Label and Friendly Fire Recordings. I can highly recommed this album to fans of innovative art pop/rock. A 4 star (80%) rating is well deserved.