Friday, April 20, 2012

SBSR: The Oh Hello’s s/t EP

            Recently, I’ve been downloading and listening to music like crazy from Band Camp.   This is a review of a group of songs by the same band I got from Band Camp- usually it constitutes an EP.   This is a song-by-song review and it is never to exceed six songs.   At the end, I will tell you the “Recommended Downloading Level”, which means whether or not I think you should spend your time downloading these songs.   It’s on a scale from 1 to 5, 5 meaning that you should stop reading my review and download these songs immediately and 1 meaning that if you even think about downloading these songs your computer will be infected with a horrific bad music virus.   Enjoy.

The Oh Hello’s s/t EP
01: “Hello My Old Heart” [4:16] --   This song starts with male vocals that immediately sound like Jack Johnson to me.   Then some female vocals come in later, which makes me think of both She & Him and Rainer Maria simultaneously.   Within the last minute or so of the song it takes its way into sounding like part of a Blue October song that goes: “My heaaaaaaarrrrrt”, which is odd because this guy is singing about his heart too, right?   It’s an all right song for fans of pop rock I guess I’d call it.
02: “Lay Me Down” [3:03] -- When these female vocals start off, I can clearly tell who the talent of this duo is.   Sorry, Tyler, but your sister has more talent than you, dude.   Eventually, Tyler joins in on the vocals as the duo sing together with a folk sounding acoustic guitar in the background.   It almost sounds like you’re at a hoedown, but then at the same time it has the chimes of an old coal miner’s song or maybe a church hymn.   It definitely has a beat you can tap your foot to and possibly a fiddle.   I like this song; I would listen to a full length album of a band that sounds like this.
03: “Cold is the Night” [3:15] -- Here comes the Jack Johnson sound again, as this song takes us back to how the first track sounded.    Female vocals kick in and we have some whistling.   This song almost plays out more like a duet than the first song, which was more like them singing at the same time.   This time they tend to take turns back and forth with who sings though sometimes they still sing together.   It has a small bit of vibe left over from the previous song—maybe it could even seem like a Johnny Cash and June Carter duet—but mostly it comes closest to sounding like the first song.
04 “Trees” [3:41] – More of that country sound, more of that Blue October end of song sound.  This is like a mixture of the first and second songs, which really make me believe The Oh Hello’s could pull off a great full length with an incomparable flow from song to song.    This song ends about thirty second early, which is something I don’t quite understand, but nevertheless it’s one of the faster paced songs and could quite possibly be my favorite.
                This EP is fourteen minutes and fifteen seconds.  I think each song gets better as it goes on, so if you’re into this sort of music I’d download it.   If you’re not into this sort of music then you’ll probably absolutely hate this stuff.
Recommended Downloading Level:  3/5

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