Ok. I’ll level with you – I haven’t really kept up to date with OK Go. I bought the first album back in the Stone Age, and enjoyed it, but the (originally) Chicago-based band were not an act I expected to still be going more than a quarter of a century after they’d formed. Neither did I anticipate how bloody good they were going to get, nor how diverse their musical palette would become. I’m now going to have to go for a rummage through their back catalogue, because, although I’m several weeks late with this review, it’s just too damn good to not give it some kind of a write-up.
The sludgy glam-rock boot stomping of ‘Impulse Purchase‘ came as a bit of a surprise to me, and who doesn’t love a bit of that sparkly, hedonistic musical swagger? It’s quite irresistible, in all honesty, and the track that follows it, recent single ‘A Stone Only Rolls Downhill‘ is even better, aligning themselves more with the easy sway of contemporaries Vampire Weekend, perhaps partly due to their residence since 2001 in the Golden State (actually ignore that, for some reason I always think VW are from California but they’re from New York.) It also has a superb video which you can view below. It’s not difficult to pinpoint an affiliation with XTC on ‘Love‘ either, the guitars on that track very clearly echoing the Swindon band’s 1979 hit ‘Making Plans For Nigel‘, though that’s where the similarities end, this song instead becoming both dreamy and urgent.
Later on, tunes like ‘This Is How It Ends‘ and ‘Don’t Give Up Now‘ showcase the more tender, affecting side of OK Go, especially the latter, closing number, which came from Damian Kulash seeing some graffiti on an underpass which was simply those four words, amateurishly splashed on, and inspired the frontman to write a song for a friend of the band who was battling cancer. It really is a beautiful song and utterly heartfelt.
Elsewhere, ‘Fantasy vs Fantasy‘ seems to take its lead from some of the more charming songs of the late fifties and early sixties – not a million miles away from Bobby Darin‘s ‘Dream Lover‘ thematically, and ostensibly a ‘rock and roll love song’, which works deliciously. And ‘Take Me With You‘ is a fabulous dancefloor gem that reminds me a little of Of Montreal‘s ‘It’s Different For Girls‘ but with a Naked era Talking Heads style musical backdrop. I love that!
I really do owe OK Go an apology – And The Adjacent Possible is a truly classy album and I have clearly underestimated them over the years. I suspect you might have done too, and if that is the case, I would urge you to seek out this album and play it loud. It really is great.
And The Adjacent Possible is out now on Paracadute.
