The Singles Jukebox

Nostalgia, ultra…

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[4.43]

Alfred Soto: Here’s a novelty: an imitation of late ’90s Depeche Mode. The influence holds Junior Boys and Holy Ghost! at bay.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: A baggier, more synthy Klaxons. 
[6]

Edward Okulicz: In the 1990s, musicians tried to create exciting new breeds of pop by mating representatives from dance and rock (see the Spawn soundtrack, by which I mean refer to it but don’t listen to it). In 2016, they’ve taken one of the resulting hybrids and back-crossed it with late-period Filter, maybe Stabbing Westward and called it “OB1.”
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: Oh right, of course there would be Crystal Method nostalgia.
[4]

Cassy Gress: There’s at least one too many choruses in this, and Gabriel Winterfield needs a bit more of a nasal sneer, like Liam Gallagher, for instance. Also, that pre-chorus is a major loss of momentum from the thrumming, mechanical riff in the verses and chorus. But riffs like that can cover up a multitude of sins.
[6]

Peter Ryan: It might be me, but it’s definitely also Gabriel Winterfield’s wet-blanket stylings. A vocalist that could light a fire under the listless portions would go a long way toward fixing things, but I’d still prefer they axe everything before 3:00 and loop the remainder I dunno, twice, not more than three times.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: I was too young and too distant for Madchester the first time around, and when I grew older and, as a budding dilettante, set about learning my history, I wondered why listeners might have wanted hip-hop or acid house filtered through indie guitar. The sound bears the notable and ignoble quality of being one of the last moments in which British rock concerned itself with innovation. English guitar acts had until that point, been more interested in contemporaneous black music from the United States and the Caribbean than many of their American counterparts, and more convinced that it could be reworked into white rock music. The late 1980s were the point the increasingly precarious balancing act that appropriation required became something British rock either could not or would not sustain, and the highlights of the era were those songs by bands like the Happy Mondays or Stones Roses that were written sharply enough to overcome the ungainly syncresis. Jagwar Ma, like me, are not of this generation or nation, and they recreate the baggy sound without the hooks, precision, or musical context of their forebears. “OB1” is the kind of music best heard at a festival, from a distance.
[3]