OH NO ONO

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.

The music on "Yes" is hard to describe but my attempt will be something like this: "Art pop/rock with a distinct high pitched lead vocalist". The influences are obviously many as I can hear both 70s and especially loads of 80s influences in the music. Funk, New Wave and pop music mixed together to form a rather original sound. "Yes" is at times even semi-progressive. The band play with song structures and experiment with sounds and time signatures, but the music is still predominantly vers/chorus structured. The album starts with the beautiful and almost symphonic prog like instrumental track "The Strawberry Festival" but most of the tracks on the album feature a wild energy and it´s almost impossible to sit still while listening. Just take a listen to tracks like "The Shock Of The Real", "Keeping Warm In Cold Country", "Practical Money Skills For Life" or "Ba Ba BaBa Ba Ba Well Anyway". All high energy party art pop/rock songs. There is one complaint about the album though and that´s the quality of the material seems to decrease the longer you get into the album and the last couple of tracks are not up to par with the excellent first half of the album. They´re not bad but it´s a bit of a shame really as the album´s playing time is only 36:52 minutes and it does affect my rating that the quality isn´t equally as high all the way through.

The musicianship is excellent. We´re talking really skilled musicians and a unique vocalist. The production is professional and powerful. "Yes" is just short of a 4 star (80%) rating because of the flaws mentioned above but when Oh No Ono shine they shine brightly. This is a great debut album from a very promising young act and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved. If you enjoy music with lots of energy and fun this album certainly applies.