Oh doom! set the tone for their forthcoming discography with the release of their elegiac debut single, All Our Songs Are Slow and Sad; but given the artistic intensity within the inaugural release, expecting the unexpected would be safer.
The release ensues from an ambient post-rock composition filled with art-rock motifs and reverb-drenched choral guitars that pull textures of shoegaze into the production until the track steadily builds in momentum throughout the extended 8-minute duration.
While attention spans may be waning and artists are churning out 2-minute pop tracks left, right, and centre, Oh Doom! exhibited the beauty of foregoing instant hooks for mind-shattering crescendos, cinematically constructed by distorted walls of noise, powerful enough to reverberate right through you.
The kinetic alchemy within All Our Songs Are Slow and Sad is a visceral attestation to the raw, creative power of Oh Doom!, who have the potential to rise to the same heights as Low and Mogwai. Not pedestrian enough for unoriginated post-rock assimilation, the single broadsides with Grandaddy-esque polyphonic synthetics which infiltrate the paradoxically tender yet monolithic production. Yet, perhaps the most striking beauty in the single lies in how, regardless of the intensity of the instrumentals, the pensively diaphanous vocals maintain imperturbable innocent serenity.
From the ashes of frenetically-paced projects, Oh doom! banded together to filter hope into despair in their releases which utilise spatial effects to let emotion manifest between the notes. As the first single from the debut EP, set for release on July 26, All Our Songs Are Slow and Sad became an irrefutable sign of even bigger things to come from the North London/Hertfordshire band.
All Our Songs Are Slow and Sad was officially released on July 5; stream the single on Spotify now.
Review by Amelia Vandergast