Customer Reviews

Devils In My Details

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I am pretty used to the dogma that Ogre faces from Skinny Puppy fans at this point. Unfortunately it seems that everyone wants his releases to sound exactly like a SP album. I've listened to Tear Garden, Hilt, Rx and his other collaborations and it is pretty clear that they are not SP sounding records.

The doubt should be absolved that Ohgr is a "solo effort". It is a collaborative pairing of two highly talented guys. That being said it seems that some fans just see "Ohgr" and assume it is just Ogre.

The album D.I.M.D. is a grand follow up to the two previous releases. A major and befitting difference is a lack of melodic hooks and catchy lyrical twisting. Mark and Ogre have definitely meshed their ideas well in making a more complex layered sound. By looking at the artwork I was definitely expecting the unexpected! As with SP, and not in comparison, I am always surprised with the ideas that exude from the mind of Kevin Ogilvie...

This is a powerful, dark and beautiful album. It gets better with repeated listens, marking a very well produced piece of work. I definitely think that Ogre is a superbly intelligent artist who is highly inventive with his styling of vocals, words, and sounds. There isn't anyone doing music the way he does it! It will be great to see this album translate into his live act. Always a good show!

Key/Fave tracks: Shhh, Eyecandy, Three, Pepper, and Whitevan (a little nod to "Dig It" in the lyrics: "Digging at this whole sh**ty world, digging it today..."

I have over the many years of loving SP and all the other projects that they are a part of, come to respect the fact that you cannot expect one idea to sound like the next. It would not be an art form if you recreated it again and again. SunnyPsyOp sounds very different from Welt as Mythmaker is quite different from Too Dark Park.

This record is remarkable. Enjoy the darkness friends...

The cover of Ohgr's latest album consists of an ornate white filigree, composed of what appear to be small budding flowers, set against a black background. In close proximity, one's eye is so entranced by the complexity and intricacy of the design that one almost completely forgets that the filigree forms the face of a cackling demon which is thrown into sharp relief by the black background. The devil is not just 'in' the details then. The devil 'is' the details.

It strikes me that this artwork is a perfect metaphor for the entire album as a whole, which, to these ears, appears to be an exploration of the idea that civilizations in thrall to early 21st century laissez-faire western capitalism have become to enraptured with the details and fripperies of society and consumption that they've managed to completely overlook the fact that the whole shebang is teetering on the brink of climatic, economic and spiritual devastation.

In it's entirety, the album paints such a claustrophobic and bitterly humourous sense of displaced paranoia, disquiet, dissatisfaction and confusion that one can't help but be drawn in by the seductiveness of it's singular vision.

Musically, in direct opposition to Ohgr's two preceding albums, Welt and Sunnypsyop (the latter still being one of my favourite album titles of all time), it favours a densely packed soundscape of thundering beats, kettle drums, ambient darkness, toy shop synthesisers, chicken clucks and sound-bites of exploitation film favourite, Bill Moseley, reciting some quite frankly stunning 'beat' poetry - "Killing me with Bacon", The soliloquy that opens the gloriously demented "Feelin' Chicken", is a personal favourite, largely because it manages to encapsulate, in under one minute, the sense of frustration experienced by modern man at the singular failure of modern society to live up to it's promises of liberty, inclusion and success with more clarity than most high-brow literature has managed to achieve in the last thirty years.

Lyrically, Nivek Ogre delivers yet another stunning and deeply sarcastic stream-of-consciousness broadside at the vagaries of life that have earned his ire, sometimes as himself, sometimes, it would appear, by adopting personas - listening to the previously mentioned "Feelin' Chicken" is almost like eavesdropping on the crisis of faith of a middle-aged adept of Martha Stewart who has finally realised that all the knitted sweaters, bake sales and Oprah specials in the universe are not going to save a world that metaphorically reeks of sugar-free frosting and dog excrement.

Will you enjoy this album?

Well, if mainstream oriented airplay is your thing, then probably not.

If, however, you, like I, enjoy listening to challenging, conceptual music which has something serious to say about the state of the world, then I recommend that you give it a listen. After all, enjoying music is essentially an act of empathy and in listening to this you may experience no small amount of catharsis when you realise that the devils that plague Ohgr's details are also the devils that plague yours.

I think this is a very creative album.

The soundscapes are exactly what I would expect from Mark Walk, alien yet familiar. The weaving of riffs and ambiance is masterful and at times chaotic. The song structure is definitively anti-pop, which is nothing like WELT, but is touched on in Sunnypsyop. Some elements of songs just aren't used enough to give a song a solid form, which of course does not make it a catchy album you can growl to.

In my opinion if a band is going to feature one performer over another (in this case Ohgr/Ogre) then make them a significant part of the mix. THere is a lot of use of the terminology 'raw' in regards to this album, but would call it sloppy mixing and mastering. The vocals need to be lifted significantly by my various stereos so I can barely make out the ramblings of Ogre. THis I find disappointing and it doesn't make this recording any better. If there is one thing like about Skinny Puppy or Ohgr that makes me want to listen to them time and time again is the chain of thought imagery lyrics that Ogre portays (it fills out the song).

There is a lot of spoken word soundscapes on this recording as one song shapelessly bleeds into another. This is reminiscent of the tracking glitch on Last Rights. It doesn't detract fom the songs too much.

So, good album, but it has issues. I can honestly say that Mark Walk and Ogre are a great pairing. I cannot wait to see them live on Thanksgiving in Denver. I am sure the live show of this material will kick my preconceptions of the material into the stratosphere.

I have to say that I honestly haven't gotten a chance to listen to the album as much as I would like to. Just got a 3000 watt PA for my living room, lol... listened to it about 5 times and broke my ears. I'm an old sp cult follower with not much time to fall into an album anymore. I have to say that Ogre is always creative! I'm glad it doesn't sound like SP. It would make me feel as if he was just trying to bank off the name. I love that Ogre is progressive. His work acts as if a diary most often. It always has, as if he has learned something new and wants to radiate what it is he has discovered. I would like to dig deeper, maybe my kids will because they seem to get just as excited when they hear that he has done something new. I always shout to the other room, "Hey kids! Who do you think this is?" while playing the latest Ogre. My youngest looks at my oldest as if it's a ridiculous question. "Is it Ogre?" my youngest says. My oldest laughs. Ogre was one of the musicians my youngest found out of my many mp3's. I never had to push it onto him; I just started hearing it coming from his room when he was about 6. I thought what?? Is this a congenital condition...? Keep it up... Another great CD!

This is the best thing I've heard from Ogre since Last Rights! I am now hopeful that the new SP album will be good!

Like everyone says, this is the closest in sound to Skinny Puppy ohGr has come to. He's already done a couple pop albums so I'm hoping he continues down this darker, more experimental path. Skinny Puppy seems to be doing this aswell. Now don't get me wrong, Timebome sounds like an Elton John tribute and Shhh reminds me of something J.G. Thirwell would cook up. It's an accessible album, just will take a while to understand it's charm unlike the others.

This is the best solo effort by Ohgr by far, I am impressed on many levels and not just because of the musick.

Think about it, Ohgr has captured, the hearts and mind of many tortured, jaded, youth over the years, and now having found himself and conquered his counterfeit self, he's become a minister of light within the darkness. Bravo Ohgr!!!

I really dig this album and the experimentation oGre and mark were trying out, and it plays great as a whole album, but as a song for song basis it gets kind of old fast. I don't find myself wanting to go back into it very often which is different from his other material, which I constantly revisit.

Some songs are great. Shhh is a classic from the get go, Pepper is very chill, Whitevan gets stunningly brilliant and Timebomb brings back the lighter mood of the earlier albums.

However some songs are just lame. Eyecandy is way too long and repetetive. D.Angel is a waste of time, Smogharp uninteresting and Witness sounds like a rejected version of Haze.

It's a mixed bag. It was absolutely wonderful to hear ogre sing the whole entire album live, and for an 'album' type of listen it was fun, but I hardly ever pick out a single track to reflect on any longer.

I wasn't sure what to expect about this album, some people said it sounded like SP and some said it couldn't have been more different. I agree with both in some ways.
This is honestly one of the most original albums I've heard in a while. The opening track, Shhh, is a very fast, hard, in your face tune, that has some creepy orchestrations. It goes from rather Skinny Puppy-esque songs like that one, and then it goes to songs that are weird, even for him. It goes from that to "Pepper," which sounds almost like a deranged clown talking into a megaphone over circus music.
Rather than saying go into this album expecting this or that, I can almost guarantee you what you hear won't be what you'll escaped. A good, original album. It'll take some time to grow on you, but if you like his other stuff, I'm sure you'll like this.

I like the fact that Ohgr isn't afraid to try something different with his music. However, and this is a minor however, this isn't the best record that I've heard of his. I give the album 4 out of 5 stars because I'm a pretty big fan of Ohgr; I've enjoyed most of his music.

This is where the "however" comes in.....

If you're expecting to hear beats and riffs that sound like WELT or SunnyPsyOp, you'll probably be dissapointed because you won't find much of that here. It's not as intense, but that can be good. Definately sounds like more of an introverted "looking at the inside from the outside" type of record. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but it takes some getting used to.

The longer you listen to it, the better it gets.