By: Chip McCabe
There was a time when rock music was dangerous. It instilled fear and froze the hearts of mild-mannered parents. The mere hint at distortion was enough to cause panic attacks. Somewhere along the line rock music became as safe as crossing a street in the sticks. It was left to those in the bowels of the music industry to rediscover the balls that rock music had castrated off sometime in the past 40 or so years. There’s a reason they call it ‘garage rock’…because mainstream America hopes it stays in your garage and never impregnates their daughters or beats up their sons.
New Haven’s Oughts won’t strike the average punk/hardcore/garage rock fan as a necessarily dangerous band, but music lovers outside these scenes may find them abrasive, the sonic equivalent of the guy who shows up to the dinner party already drunk. The garage their rock comes out of is one firmly planted on the wrong side of town, where the outside light is busted and the doors are kept locked at all times. They play a violently discordant type of rock music that finds just as much ancestry in the rich Connecticut punk and hardcore scenes as it does anything else. It’s a throwback type of record to a time when the term ‘scene’ actually meant something other than just keeping tabs on who showed up where.
The Beautiful Jane Seymour EP is the second EP in the short career of Oughts, following 2013’s Multiple Vices. There must have been some serious tension in that roughly year between releases as the angst this band channels has been turned up a couple notches from release one to release two. Album opener “Finished Basement” is 74 seconds of pure vexation, the angst completely tangible on so many levels. It’s followed up by “Bodega” which sounds like the bastard child of Fugazi and Reach The Sky, complete with that classic 90’s breakdown that had so many kids practicing their best Bruce Lee impersonations in pits across the VFW circuit. Possibly the best track on the album though is album closer “Work Phone.” Emo flavored guitar lines are tempered with boisterous, yelled vocals and drumming harkening back to a time when bands like Canada’s Grade or New Jersey’s Lifetime were at the top of their game.
The entire thing encompasses all of about eight minutes, possibly the shortest new release you’ll hear this year that contains more than two songs. But in that relatively brief expanse Oughts has been able to capture the true in-your-face spirit of rock n’ roll and successfully merge it with what are presumably some of the heavier sounds of their youth. It’s a feisty little record, like a quick slap to the face in a playful, yet not altogether diluted, way. You’ll find more dangerous albums this year if you want, but certainly they won’t all be as enjoyable as this one. The Beautiful Jane Seymour EP is out now and can be experienced at the Oughts Bandcamp page.
If you are in the greater CT area be sure to check out Oughts at the 3rd Annual Emerge Festival on Friday, March 6 at The Outer Space/Ballroom in Hamden, CT.
Lonesome Noise 