‘Devil In My Details’ is the third album from Ohgr, the ongoing Electro Industrial side project consisting of Skinny Puppy frontman Nivek Ogre and elusive multi-instrumentalist/producer Mark Walk. The album’s diverse content is seamlessly woven with interludes of highly textured experimentation and spoken word courtesy of horror icon Bill Moseley, who co-stars alongside Ogre in this year’s Repo! The Genetic Opera. Fans of classic Skinny Puppy will welcome the group’s return to a more abrasive Industrial past while newcomers may be left temporarily overwhelmed, grasping for the catchy hooks and vocal melodies that have characterized previous Ohgr offerings. Those who dare to delve deeper will discover the band’s most fully realized collection of songs yet; a wicked brew combining the wildly disparate sonic ingredients that have featured in Nivek Ogre’s work to date.
The album kicks off with “Shhh”, a stomping rhythmic dirge reminiscent of Ogre’s other solo project, the one-off collaboration with post-punk drummer Martin Atkins known as Rx. Standout tracks “Eyecandy” and the guitar-driven “Psychoreal” continue the emphasis on rhythm and sound design over melody. “Feelin’ Chicken’” is modern day Syd Barrett; a brilliant distorted pop gem in 5/4 time that showcases the songwriting of Ohgr at its best. “Timebomb” is pure blissed-out industrial hip-hop; crunchy beats paired with a catchy piano hook and brilliant vocal delivery. This song ranks among the best in the group’s relatively small catalog. The album ends on a triumphant note with the ballad “Witness” which resembles “Haze” from Skinny Puppy’s ‘Mythmaker’ complete with crashing percussion and a soaring chorus.
‘Devil In My Details’ is as an exciting glimpse of the future for the Skinny Puppy camp. The heavily processed vocoder effects, which have been abused in Ogre’s output throughout this decade, are limited to the songs “Pepper” and “Whitevan”. This new shift may signal the reintroduction of industrial sound wizardry that Skinny Puppy fans have been waiting for, while still leaving room for compositional improvement. With Mark Walk and Nivek Ogre already comprising 2/3 of the band, the addition of cEvin Key is sure to be the tipping point to perfect the delicate balance of brutal experimentation and confident songwriting that ‘Devil in My Details’ strives to achieve.
I love the cd too. I burned a copy for this kid who works at the local FYE who claims to like ohgr and skinny puppy… his comments on it “uhmm… yeah… it’s a little to dancy for me” :sigh:
I think the album’s amazing and I can honestly say I prefer this one over that last two puppy efforts; seems a lot more focused and truer than those two. Not sure how I would compare this to the other two (ohgr) albums, but i’d say it’s very good, and i’ve been listening to it a lot since even the leak. And it’s good enough for me to actually buy it (which I did), and that’s a rarity in itself. Favorite tracks are Shhh, Feelin’ Chicken and Whitevan. Witness sounds a bit like haze off mythmaker, but I can even say I like witness a whole lot more…just seems catchier.
Think I need to jump on this. “GWOTR” was excellent (“DaddyuWarbash” still being one of my all-time fave Skuppy songs), but “Mythmaker” didn’t do much for me.
I wasn’t too excited going in (didn’t dig the last two Puppy albums) but was pleasantly surprised, it’s a lot weirder than I expected. The album flows quite nicely, the experimental elements mix with the pop elements better here than they have on the last two Puppy albums. Favorites are Shhh, Eyecandy and Whitevan.
I’m still giving Ogre in “Repo: The Genetic Opera” a vote of no confidence though.
Think I need to jump on this. “GWOTR” was excellent (“DaddyuWarbash” still being one of my all-time fave Skuppy songs), but “Mythmaker” didn’t do much for me.
Key’s on this one, too? Yeah, I might want it.
cEvin Key is not on this. Otherwise it would be the new Skinny Puppy album lol…
You should get it. But then again my review should sum up my thoughts on it.
I’ve spun it twice, and haven’t really gotten into it. I think I need to put it on as background music while I’m doing other things, and see if it grabs me. At the moment, I prefer Sunnypsyop to this one.
Great album. The evil choppiness of Eyecandy, sad subtle Smogharp, and the looking back at it all what-the-fuck is going on here grand finale feel of Witness. Those are my favorite tracks. I’ll be at the show in Hollywood next Wednesday…anyone else?
I like this release a lot it, it is very experimental compared to the rest of their output this millenium so far. This is Ohgr’s Last Rights with a lot of dense textures and atmospheres, the cohesiveness of the music as a whole comes off as a sort of concept album. From what I understand the bulk of this was recorded as one big jam which would explain why it all fits together nicely. Bill (Chop-Top) Moseley’s narration is the icing on the cake. The show should be nice, I caught Ohgr twice on the last tour and enjoyed it even more so than the TGWOTR tour.
man guys, i tell you - i noticed this weekend how shitty it is buying CDs now. I’m not a digital download kinda guy. I went out to get the new ohgr and i also wanted to pick up some of the orb’s reissues. Could not find them anywhere. i mean fuck - i live in Atlanta - this shouldn’t be happening. I guess i’m gonna have to order them. i bet chris’s record store has these releases.
Just got tickets for the Hollywood show at the El Rey. Should be good stuff, no idea who or what is opening for him.
Part of the opener is a film by William Morrison (who does most of SP’s videos) called American Memory Project. Here is Bill’s website to check out a trailer for the film which combines audio and still pictures from the Library of Congress’s collection with music.
I guess they will be pulling double duty each night as William and Justin Bennett (Puppy and Ohgr’s live drummer) will be performing the soundtrack live as it is shown [shocked]
Listened to it a couple of times. I was unsure at first but now I’m really digging it. There are parts that sound like RX if RX had been cohesive and interesting rather than scattered and shitty. You can definitely hear the rock opera influence that REPO! has had on Ogre and it’s for the best. “Timebomb” would have been unimaginable as an Ogre track before.
It’ll need more listens before I declare it a raging success but so far, I’m quite happy.
I think I’m declaring the album a raging success. This is my favorite thing Ogre’s done since the 90’s. Very much looking forward to the show tonight. From glancing over at the Litany forum it sounds like we get to hear most of the album from start to finish, which sounds great to me. I’m hoping we get some live spoken word from Choptop at the El Rey as well!