ALBUM REVIEW: Rot – Ohhms
Music is fun. Well, at least, it used to be. Those times as a teenager when you and your mates giddily “started a band” but never went beyond that first tuneless meeting, or the songs that are tied to powerful waves of nostalgia and days you’ll never forget. Then the gatekeepers, elitists and trolls came around and suddenly your favourite songs are subjected to painstaking scrutiny and judgement. OHHMS are sick of it and that’s why on their sixth album Rot, they’re injecting their own sense of fun back into what they do.
Whereas their previous work has focused on weighty topics like animal rights or global warming, Rot centres instead on the band members’ main obsession: horror movies. Eight songs (and a bang-on-theme intro) inspired by some of the horror genre’s most gruesome and ghoulish entries, all translated into OHHMS’ potent sludge racket.
But if you’re coming into this expecting an ode to Jason Voorhees or a soliloquy for Jigsaw, then you’re way off the mark. Vocalist Paul Waller‘s knowledge of the genre runs terrifyingly deep – he hosts his own podcast about horror movies, after all – so he’s taken some hidden gems and deep B-movie cuts to inspire the songs on Rot. For example, Eaten Alive is based on the 1976 slasher horror of the same name about a psychotic hotel proprietor who feeds unhappy guests to a large crocodile that lives in the swamp beside the property. Yeah, we’re getting obscure.
The decision to pigeon-hole themselves into horror romanticism allows OHHMS to branch out sonically more than ever before, from the heavy rock ’n’ roll of The Mephisto Waltz to the mid-00s emo-esque ending of Swamp Thing, as well as expanding on their bread and butter offering of proggy sludge and post-metal. Marc George and Daniel Sargent’s guitars sound broader than ever from sweeping highs to crushing lows and peppered with intricacies and runs that delight; the vocals have been pushed even further on both the cleans and screams, and the rhythm section of Max Newton (drums) and Chainy Rabbit (bass) pounds, rumbles and cavorts wildly throughout the album.
While the decision to step away from the serious stuff and rediscover the fun of being in a band is admirable, OHHMS‘ passion was always a driving factor behind what made them so great. That’s not to say that Rot sounds phoned in or like they don’t have their hearts in it, but the stakes and urgency are gone somewhat with these songs when compared to The World or Revenge. Similarly, their choice to expand their musical horizons and fold in new elements doesn’t always work as well as it should: the techno ending of A Dark Song is jarring and feels shoehorned in however on theme it is with the film that inspired it, and the less said about the key change on Body Melt, the better. Truly a watch-through-your-fingers moment.
But at its core, this is a fun album. The chorus of The Mephisto Waltz will get itself stuck in your head for weeks on end, and Let’s Scare Jessica To Death is a swirling menace that is utterly irresistible. The highlight though is Eaten Alive; with its cheerleader spelling gang vocal passages and a mountain of riffs, it’ll have you seeing a chiropractor in no time. Rot is also far punchier and more immediate than anything the band have done before. With the longest track not even reaching seven minutes, it’s a far cry from the 20-minute monoliths found on prior albums.
Like Dr. Frankenstein, OHHMS have stuck together many elements to form a single being and unleashed it upon us. Rot is ready to love and be loved; grotesque, mindless and lurching, it’ll be met with torches and pitchforks in some corners, but over time it may become the lovable hero for fans.
Rating: 6/10
Rot is out now via Church Road Records.
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