Menu Content/Inhalt
Home arrow Reviews arrow Balls of Fury: Oswald Effect’s debut hums with effective rock
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
August 07, 2008, 06:18:01 PM
Username: Password:
Login with username, password and session length

Forgot your password?
Advice

Get preferred legal advice from a criminal attorney. Review frequently asked questions about attorneys. If you have suffered an injury due to a car accident then consult a personal injury lawyer. For specific state laws on the west coast, hire a California lawyer. Discover the difference between legal advice vs. legal information in the court system.


If you want your music to sound the best then start with the right guitars. We carry all the major acoustic guitars you are looking for at prices you can afford. Here you can read the history of guitar and how it has changed over the years. If drum sets are your instrument of choice, check out our great deals. Getting your children into music helps them develop and learn better in school.


If you want your music to sound the best then start with the right bass guitars. We carry all the major drums brands you are looking for at prices you can afford. It is important to introduce music to children as many researchers point out. If acoustic guitars are your guitar of choice, check out our great deals. Read up on the history of guitars and how they have evolved over the decades.


If you want your music to sound the best then start with the right fender guitars. We carry all the major drums brands you are looking for at prices you can afford. It is important to introduce music into children's lives as many researchers point out. If electric guitars are your instrument of choice, check out our great deals. Read up on guitar history and how it has evolved over the decades.


If you want your music to sound the best then start with the right music instruments. We carry all the major drums sets you are looking for at prices you can afford. It is important to introduce music to kids as many researchers point out. If acoustic guitars are your instrument of choice, check out our great deals. Read up on the history of guitars and how they have evolved over the decades.

Balls of Fury: Oswald Effect’s debut hums with effective rock
By P.W. Richardson   
Tuesday, 18 March 2008

oswald_effectThe Oswald Effect
Battle Hymns of the Fifth Column
[Self Released; 2007]

The Oswald Effect capture a broad range of influences and come out the other end with a unique blend of cool on their self-released debut LP Battle Hymns of the Fifth Column. The album is a dark jest at the power of money and the corruption of humanity, on which T.O.E. tackle a bizarre array of grim topics – from incest to assassination – in an eleven-song tongue twister.

T.O.E.’s sound is rich with the warm crunch of loudly ringing guitars. Heath Bauer’s vocals are insanely raw at times, swinging from crawling word play into jaguar screams at the drop of a sixteenth note.

Bauer’s battle-scream singing style transforms this avalanche manifesto into a story of death, pain, fear and betrayal. The words tend to fly by as you sit back and let the coffin-nail tight rhythm section pound you into submission. And the band’s engine roars under the glowing flurry of notes guitarist Aaron Walters fires off among Bauer’s vocal licks.

All the rock and roll bluster here is not without some seedier moments.

On ‘Bring Your Precision,’ the band reaches down under its collective seats to finger the wads of chewed gum. Musically, this is my favorite song, but I must admit that the lyrics are beyond my understanding. Bauer sings, “All of us want to have a piece of you, but we will all be masqueraded from head to toe, bring you’re precision girl, I got to control your world with sex, drugs, and rock n roll, a thick pill in your drink after which in the pink I will sink, I will have my way with you, when you hit the ground…” The only thing I can even possibly think is that this was an attempt to write something akin to Nirvana’s ‘Polly.’ The band, however, really misses the mark on this one. I am no priest and I am not licensed to practice medicine, but it might be wise if whichever one of you wrote this had your head examined. - (6/10)


The Oswald Effect will release their new album, Love & Sabotage, at a March 22 show at Seattle’s new King Cobra venue on Capitol Hill.

Comments (Login to reply)
Balls of Fury: Oswald Effect’s debut hums with effective rock
Johnny Oswald    March 21st, 2008 - 2:26 PM
Our thanks to P.W. for his insightful review of Battle Hymns of the Fifth Column,  which we released in late 2004/early 2005 (wish we could say we were able to have put records out ourselves in back to back years, but alas, that degree of productivity has alluded us to this point).

Normally we wouldn't feel the need to respond to any review let alone one so flattering and well crafted, but with the interest that any and all might experience guilt-free listening we thought we should take the opportunity to clarify the content of the lyrics on "Bring Your Precision", which were understandably quoted and questioned by P.W in the article. Much of the record lyrically is conceptual and delivered in the second or third person. In "Precision" the central character is in fact a villainous seedy mother fucker, and Heath very much intended the song as a warning to his own daughters and all of our sisters out there; there are indeed some exceedingly fucked up men among us who would objectify you, indirectly or directly harm you and cause you to doubt your self worth. The only acceptable answer to this paradox being, of course, never afford anyone that opportunity.

Thank you NadaMucho, you know who loves ya! Beloved advocates of local music and the most undervalued online or printed resource in the Seattle music scene we've ever encountered.

 Love & Sabotage!
-The Oswalds

(2) Comments
 
« Prev   Next »
www.nadamucho.com