Album Review: Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin

Freak folk band O'Death's Sophomore LP Diversifies Influences

Mar 3, 2009

The second album by O'Death has influences ranging from punk to bluegrass. Considerably more bass heavy, electric, and driven than their debut, the LP is worth loving.

Broken Limbs, Hymns, and Skin shows a great deal of maturation for the artists of O'Death. The five-piece band from Brooklyn has managed to improve musically without doing anything to their lineup or instrumentation.

This second album broadens their influence and instrumentation, with more drums and bass than on the first album, ukulele on songs like “A Light that does not Dim”, and a greater variety of song structure and tempo. All of these are welcome changes, and Broken Limbs is clearly a step up from O'Death's already excellent debut Head Home in almost every way.

O'Death Change Up the Tempo, Drums, and Bass

One of the more remarkable things about Broken Limbs, Hymns, and Skin is the changes O'Death makes to their song structure. Lead singer Greg Jamie's voice still has its unique qualities (sounding as if Issac Brock of Modest Mouse smoked too many cigarettes), but his energy, as with the band's overall energy, is more fine-tuned. Jamie doesn't scream for a lot of the album, but he saves it for important sections, such as the chorus of their single “Lowtide”.

As for the band as a whole, they've refined their energy, making more organized songs and giving room for more listenable softer and slower songs such as “Angeline”.

The focus is still on Jamie's guitar, fiddler Bob Pycior, and banjo/ukulele player Gabe Darling, as with a traditional bluegrass band, but O'Death also manages to give bigger parts to bassist Jesse Newman and drummer Dave Rogers-Berry. This makes a great deal of difference on songs like “Fire on Peshtigo”, where the driving bass and eccentric drumming supports the rest of the band.

For O'Death's second album, Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin does virtually nothing wrong. It has a great balance and organization of songs, a unique freak folk sound which blends strange singing and punk influences with traditional bluegrass melodies, and powerful songs about travel and home. It even includes the popular single “Spider Home”, now known as “Vacant Moan”, and contains all of the quirky folk sounds heard in Head Home, but with a more refined sound. A must-have for any fan of freak folk, bluegrass, gypsy, or even punk music.

9.0/10- Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin is a step up from O'Death's debut Head Home. It is overflowing with energy and catchy music, blending genres to create a truly ubiquitous sound that is hard to stomach, but equally easy to appreciate.

O'Death will be touring with Les Claypool in March and are signed to Kemado Records. You can follow them on Myspace.

The copyright of the article Album Review: Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin in Bluegrass Music is owned by James Blake. Permission to republish Album Review: Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.