Oog Bogo

Emerging from the cocoon of their early days on Ty’s God? Records, Oog Bogo find their footing in a record that balances cowlicked riffs with butter-smooth harmonies. The band waded through a few iterations of itch before landing on their current cool down, pounding through the kind of plasticine pop that powered Oh Sees and Axis: Sova, with stops though the nihilistic tendrils of Tubeway Army. Cowgirls marks a maturation point for the Oog, a record that sheds it’s tar-plated exoskeleton for something a slight bit sunnier. Don’t let the soft underbelly fool ya, though. The band may have added a few pillowy harmonies, but at least one or two pillows in the fight are full of rocks. When they hit the fuzz, they don’t take half measures, shredding the senses through the cosmic sieve.

Recorded with Eric Bauer at the faders, there’s plenty of the kind of savage volume that he’s able to squeeze out of a record, and the band lets any sense of softness out the window on centerpiece scorcher “Giddy Up,” and the scuzz-laden “Cell Atrophy.” The record’s greatest strength is amplifying the qualities that made the Oog click in the past, inflating every riff until it’s about to burst, strumming the strings with beauty and blood, and curling a few marshmallow harmonies around the wreckage. It’s an album cured in contrast, and in the hands of a lesser band it might become muddled, but on Cowgirls, Oog Bogo stick the landing every time.