OHO

If I had known better (for example if anyone had written a review here) about this cd+dvd release by an American band totally unfamiliar to me, I probably wouldn't have bought it secondhand in the first place. I did listen to a couple of songs from youtube when trying to decide whether to order it or not, and was perplexed by their pop nature without any notable sign of prog, even though this band is categorized here as RIO/Avant-Prog (which they must have been in their original era in the 70's). I didn't have much of any interest to those two half-listened songs, but still I decided to buy the release with a beautiful cover art and a dvd as an extra bait.

This music was recorded mostly between '90 - '04, concerning also various particles within the songs themselves. This I learned from the dvd's textual contents (including lyrics as well). There are three female lead vocalists -- not counting Lisa Griffee who sings just one song -- appearing in turns on the set, Grace Hearn appearing the most frequently. They are not very distinctive compared to each other; a bit too sharp voices for my taste. The band's leader Jay Graboski plays guitar and David Reeve is mainly a drummer. All the other performers are named only in the dvd, song by song.

After listening to the set entirely, I still find it extremely difficult to spot anything progressive, not to mention avantish, in the music. This is upbright pop-rock with female vocals. Not that kind of pop I would be keen on, rather something one hears on commercially oriented rock channels on radio. Alanis Morrissette, Heart and such. Hell, Fleetwood Mac featuring Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks is way more interesting to my ears. Some songs here are catchier than others, but none of them really impressed me. Instead they all more or less sound the same. For example, no emotional ballads to stick out from the outgoing whole. Pretty bad for a nearly 79-minute cd containing 20 songs, huh?

The twelve tracks on the dvd (all between 1987 and 1992) are visually poor. Some gig cuts are just bootleg quality, mostly blurred and dark. A few tracks are music videos, in theory, but mostly likewise visually poor if not downright thrashy.

So, this was a major disappointment. If you like this kind of pop-rock, this set is not actually bad and it suits well for casual background listening.

OHO was an unique USA four piece formation from the second half of the Seventies, nicknamed "Baltimore's answer to Pink Floyd". In 2010 the label Rockadrome released the original LP from 1974 (15 tracks) as a CD, including 15 'session tracks' as bonus material, in total a running time of 74 minutes.

Listening to OHO is a captivating musical adventure, this is progressive rock in the true meaning of the word. I notice hints of Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa, but OHO has blended this inspiration with many strong musical ideas, a lot of variety and frequently shifting moods.

Psychedelic organ, rock guitar and avant-garde piano in Hyphenate Ice-less.

A catchy rhythm with fiery guitar and Zappa-like vocals in Horse Remorse.

Rock-and-roll piano with electric guitar and saxophone in A Frog For You.

Psychedelic organ and hypnotizing drums, followed by a swinging piano and again Zappa-like vocals in Higshead.

A bluesy climate featuring lush Mellotron waves in The Silent Sickle Sucker.

A funny atmosphere with trumpet in Fast Bananas.

Warm vocals and intense Mellotron work in Gotta Write A Poem.

And avant-garde piano with wah-wah guitar and propulsive drums in Board Organ.

Very surprising is the final composition Plague: lots of variety and wonderful Mellotron and organ play, often very compelling.

Especially in the first part of the Seventies progressive rock was pure adventure, just listen to OHO!

My rating: 3,5 star.

But this means that 40 years of material written and collected for this 2015 release aren't limited by labels. In the album there is sme avant noise, but also a track like "Nazi Dog Jam" which is very reminding of the early Pink Floyd (Ummagumma/Meddle period). There's a sort of catchy Calypso on "House Party" and "I Could Not See Until I Opened My Eyes", and all extremely well played and arranged, even when it's clearly a long bluesy jam. The short "Peradam" could be added to a newage compilation, "Aubrey Circle Dance" has some funky.

So there's a lot of everything and this album is surely worth to be carefully listened. The mixture of "easy" and "challenging" tracks, well...not too much challenging really, can make it result a bit "disconnected", but this is the effect of having recorded material coming from different period in over 40 years.

This is a band that would have deserved a bit of success. I don't know what the band members have done out of those three albums. There's no track of other recordings or collaborations with other artists, at least for what I know. Anyway this is a very good album which can0t have from me less than 4 PA stars

It's sorta pity their playing style, simpleness of creation, or composition method could not be thought progressive (I'm afraid freaks of so-called progressive rock nowadays could not understand their innovative points of musical view indeed), but without any suspicion they ring our bells along with funny, funky, and cynical melodic logic like Zappa, that obviously should be stuffed into short song stories of theirs. Guess there are always plenty of substantial or psychological hints for their bulky, massive creativity around them, and they would have got and digested precious material smoothly and swiftly. That's the reason why they have no authentic nor legendary vein in their creation but magmatic attachment for innovation and pleasure.

Let me say OHO can be interpreted as acronyms of "originality, humanity, and opacity" (sorry for my cheep cheesy joke), and I do hope they will be active, aggressive, and anti-conservative ... maybe not only me.

If you generally enjoy challenging progressive rock as it was made in the 70's, and in particular if you fancy a band emphasizing the lyrical and vocal dimensions of that approach, you'll most likely find Oho's "Okinawa" to be an interesting experience. Not without faults, but with 30 creations to explore there should be plenty of material to enjoy even if a few should be given the skip.