My Amazon Reviews: OK Go "Hungry Ghosts"

Appetite For Power Pop
4 Out Of 5 Stars

For better or for worse, OK Go are more known as the band who make videos of themselves on treadmills and inside contraptions made up to look like real life versions of the Mousetrap game. What gets overlooked is that, for four albums now, there's a first rate pop-rock band hidden behind the paint balls. "Hungry Ghosts," four years after "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky," captures that effortless pop fun that the band has been excelling at since their debut.

Admittedly, the oddly funky and falsetto filled "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky" was a divisive album for fans, but that can be forgiven here. "Hungry Ghosts" keeps some of "Colour's" quirks while integrating them into the new music. It means the twitchy new wave of the debut is tempered into sonic neatness like the atmospheric "Another Set of Issues." They haven't completely forgone their fascination with Prince by way of The Cars, like the cowbell clanging "Obsession" and the danceable "I Won't Let You Down" shows. Vocalist Damian Kulash gleefully bounds from the straightforward power pop vocals to the funky stuff while making the whole of "Hungry Ghosts" a cohesive album.

While "Oh No" remains OK Go's high-water mark, "Hungry Ghosts" is a crowd pleaser. Fans will be happy to hear OK Go in fine form, and note that the four year wait was well worth it. From the pop magic of "Upside Down and Inside Out" that opens things up to the gentle strains of the final "Lullaby," this is a solid album from beginning to end, proving they can have their say without adorable trained dogs to guide them.

     

OK Go Meets the Muppets!

OMG - OK Go goes to the Dogs

OK Go's New Awesome Video Contraption

This is 57 shades of awesome.

Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs. Produced by Shirley Moyers. The official video for the recorded version of "This Too Shall Pass" off of the album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky". The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The "machine" was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs ( http://syynlabs.com/ ) over the course of several months.

While I think the new album is a bit duff (review post here), this just knocks my socks off.

My Amazon Reviews: OK Go "Of The Blue Colour of The Sky"

The Purple Rain that falls from the Blue Colour of The Sky
3 Out Of 5 Stars 

OK Go took a detour from the majestic power pop of their first two albums and ventured into Minneapolis. At least that is what you may end up thinking when you give a listen to the awkwardly titled "Of The Blue Color Of The Sky." Gone completely are the hyper-energetic songs that garnered comparisons to the likes of Cheap Trick or the perennially underrated Urge Overkill; in their place are Princely sounds as filtered through The Flaming Lips. Die hards may buckle under the change, but I dig it.

First off, the band's knack for a good hook is still in play. Both "All Is Not Lost" and "This Too Shall Pass" are highly memorable pop tunes, even if they don't race along at the kinetic pace of Oh No's "Here It Goes Again." (Make sure to YouTube the single camera/single take marching band version of "This Too Shall Pass" - and the video version of the song would have been a perfect bonus cut.) Then they take on the raspy falsettos of Prince on "End Love" and "White Knuckles." It's a song that makes me wonder if the band hasn't been giving some serious listening to My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges.

Only problem is, if you have the first two OK Go albums, you might be checking your CD to make sure you're still listening to the same band. I started really wishing for a good guitar blast to break through the all the sonic oddities and just kick up the volume a notch or two. I'm all for a band taking artistic control of their sound and changing it up now and then, but "Of The Blue" is a 360 swing from OK Go of the past. I give them a bonus half-star just for the gutsiness of their move and now look forward to where the next album takes them.

Because I so dig 'em

The new video from OK Go. Review of new CD coming soon.  

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo. Interesting article from the band on why EMI doesn't want you to see this here.

New CD Here.