Ours

Mercy (Dancing for the Death of an Imaginary Enemy)

(American)

Record Review by Amber Henson

I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I was not aware that you can’t judge a band by its MySpace page.  I normally don’t trust a band with red goth writing and lots of skulls, but I gave Ours a chance, and was pleasantly surprised.  Upon closer inspection, this was not a band full of angry fools (or if they are, they hide it well).  Jimmy Gnecco, Locke, Static, and Race, the members of the band have magical talent, which I would expect from a group that started an impressive 16 years ago.  Mercy is their third album.  I thought maybe they got all the crazy irate stuff out of them early, but after listening to a couple of their songs from past albums, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Lead singer Gnecco sometimes belts it out like Matthew Bellamy from Muse and other times like Bono.  The songs are reminiscent of The Killers, Interpol, and Radiohead.  They’re a big fan of what I think I’ll start calling Drama Drums, where it’s a lot of interlaced, driving beats that attempt to make you think deep thoughts.  They’re also a fan of the long songs, ranging from four minutes to six.

The stand-out track, “Ran Away to Tell the World,” starts with an Oasis-sounding acoustic guitar and inspirational humming, with string instruments added for good measure, and the lyrics, “Don’t spend your whole life waiting for your whole life.”

The sound of the record is polished, and they do a good job of keeping the songs in different genres  Although there’s a definite connection of darkness running through the album, they vary with the type of music.  I would be hard pressed to call it indie, but it’s not plain rock, either.  The album ends with a track called “Get Up”, where Gnecco’s voice is accompanied by an interesting variety of mainly electronic instruments.  It serves as a proper ending for an eclectic, talented band.