Search - OhGr :: Devils In My Details

Ogre's In The Details

Christopher Vaughn | San Antonio | 11/13/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am pretty used to the dogma that Ogre faces from Skinny Puppy fans at this point. Unfortunately it seems that everyone wants his releases to sound exactly like a SP album. I've listened to Tear Garden, Hilt, Rx and his other collaborations and it is pretty clear that they are not SP sounding records.



The doubt should be absolved that Ohgr is a "solo effort". It is a collaborative pairing of two highly talented guys. That being said it seems that some fans just see "Ohgr" and assume it is just Ogre.



The album D.I.M.D. is a grand follow up to the two previous releases. A major and befitting difference is a lack of melodic hooks and catchy lyrical twisting. Mark and Ogre have definitely meshed their ideas well in making a more complex layered sound. By looking at the artwork I was definitely expecting the unexpected! As with SP, and not in comparison, I am always surprised with the ideas that exude from the mind of Kevin Ogilvie...



This is a powerful, dark and beautiful album. It gets better with repeated listens, marking a very well produced piece of work. I definitely think that Ogre is a superbly intelligent artist who is highly inventive with his styling of vocals, words, and sounds. There isn't anyone doing music the way he does it! It will be great to see this album translate into his live act. Always a good show!



Key/Fave tracks: Shhh, Eyecandy, Three, Pepper, and Whitevan (a little nod to "Dig It" in the lyrics: "Digging at this whole sh**ty world, digging it today..."



I have over the many years of loving SP and all the other projects that they are a part of, come to respect the fact that you cannot expect one idea to sound like the next. It would not be an art form if you recreated it again and again. SunnyPsyOp sounds very different from Welt as Mythmaker is quite different from Too Dark Park.



This record is remarkable. Enjoy the darkness friends..."

It's a good recording, but...

the Konza Plains | 11/07/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I think this is a very creative album.



The soundscapes are exactly what I would expect from Mark Walk, alien yet familiar. The weaving of riffs and ambiance is masterful and at times chaotic. The song structure is definitively anti-pop, which is nothing like WELT, but is touched on in Sunnypsyop. Some elements of songs just aren't used enough to give a song a solid form, which of course does not make it a catchy album you can growl to.



In my opinion if a band is going to feature one performer over another (in this case Ohgr/Ogre) then make them a significant part of the mix. THere is a lot of use of the terminology 'raw' in regards to this album, but would call it sloppy mixing and mastering. The vocals need to be lifted significantly by my various stereos so I can barely make out the ramblings of Ogre. THis I find disappointing and it doesn't make this recording any better. If there is one thing like about Skinny Puppy or Ohgr that makes me want to listen to them time and time again is the chain of thought imagery lyrics that Ogre portays (it fills out the song).



There is a lot of spoken word soundscapes on this recording as one song shapelessly bleeds into another. This is reminiscent of the tracking glitch on Last Rights. It doesn't detract fom the songs too much.



So, good album, but it has issues. I can honestly say that Mark Walk and Ogre are a great pairing. I cannot wait to see them live on Thanksgiving in Denver. I am sure the live show of this material will kick my preconceptions of the material into the stratosphere."

They're Killing Us With Bacon...

darklordzden | Australia | 07/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The cover of Ohgr's latest album consists of an ornate white filigree, composed of what appear to be small budding flowers, set against a black background. In close proximity, one's eye is so entranced by the complexity and intricacy of the design that one almost completely forgets that the filigree forms the face of a cackling demon which is thrown into sharp relief by the black background. The devil is not just 'in' the details then. The devil 'is' the details.



It strikes me that this artwork is a perfect metaphor for the entire album as a whole, which, to these ears, appears to be an exploration of the idea that civilizations in thrall to early 21st century laissez-faire western capitalism have become to enraptured with the details and fripperies of society and consumption that they've managed to completely overlook the fact that the whole shebang is teetering on the brink of climatic, economic and spiritual devastation.



In it's entirety, the album paints such a claustrophobic and bitterly humourous sense of displaced paranoia, disquiet, dissatisfaction and confusion that one can't help but be drawn in by the seductiveness of it's singular vision.



Musically, in direct opposition to Ohgr's two preceding albums, Welt and Sunnypsyop (the latter still being one of my favourite album titles of all time), it favours a densely packed soundscape of thundering beats, kettle drums, ambient darkness, toy shop synthesisers, chicken clucks and sound-bites of exploitation film favourite, Bill Moseley, reciting some quite frankly stunning 'beat' poetry - "Killing me with Bacon", The soliloquy that opens the gloriously demented "Feelin' Chicken", is a personal favourite, largely because it manages to encapsulate, in under one minute, the sense of frustration experienced by modern man at the singular failure of modern society to live up to it's promises of liberty, inclusion and success with more clarity than most high-brow literature has managed to achieve in the last thirty years.



Lyrically, Nivek Ogre delivers yet another stunning and deeply sarcastic stream-of-consciousness broadside at the vagaries of life that have earned his ire, sometimes as himself, sometimes, it would appear, by adopting personas - listening to the previously mentioned "Feelin' Chicken" is almost like eavesdropping on the crisis of faith of a middle-aged adept of Martha Stewart who has finally realised that all the knitted sweaters, bake sales and Oprah specials in the universe are not going to save a world that metaphorically reeks of sugar-free frosting and dog excrement.



Will you enjoy this album?



Well, if mainstream oriented airplay is your thing, then probably not.



If, however, you, like I, enjoy listening to challenging, conceptual music which has something serious to say about the state of the world, then I recommend that you give it a listen. After all, enjoying music is essentially an act of empathy and in listening to this you may experience no small amount of catharsis when you realise that the devils that plague Ohgr's details are also the devils that plague yours.

"