Ought - "Room Inside A World"

Oh boy, has this year been heavy with Post Punk releases so far.  I'm not going to sugarcoat this one, I love Ought.  I saw them at a festival about 3 years ago and their performance was so tight.  When I first heard their 2014 debut "More Than Any Other Day", I honestly thought they had something really special.  Their music was tightly wound and robotic, in the best way.  So much so that the band, especially frontman Tim Darcy just seemed so paranoid almost to an inhuman level.  Together, they recorded a series of very bizarre, manic Post-Punk tracks that were sort of artsy and filled with personality.  And while there were a few disturbing moments, most of this tracklist wasn't as dark as Post-Punk usually is.  Ought returned in 2015 with "Sun Coming Down", an album bigger and better in every way.  I feel like a lot of the songs had some of the fat trimmed from them, and the tracklist was more concise.  And interestingly enough, I felt like this album was almost colorful, which is a little odd for a Post-Punk album, but hey, it worked wonderfully.  Tim Darcy seemed more like a raving lunatic than ever, and Ought just seemed completely off the rails and I loved it all.  Now, let's be real.  These new Ought singles are very VERY different and are more theatrical and Art Rock inspired compared to Post Punk.  They're a little less instantaneous, but I think Ought may be onto something special.  Let's chat.

(A personal favorite of mine)

This album starts with the very lush, downtrodden “Into the Sea”.  This is a weird one for sure, I’m used to hearing Ought just go full on Post-Punk.  But it seems as if they’ve hung up their boots completely and gone for a much more classy, Art Rock sound.  I have to say though, they sound completely at home.  Tim Darcy’s very manic vocals just go so well with this colorful atmosphere.  And on top of that, I feel like as a whole the boys in Ought have never sounded so emotional and full of life.  I’m used to hearing such tight and rigid playing from Ought.  But the playing here is just so lavish, it really makes you look at the rest of the musicians in Ought in such a completely new light.  I love the weeping guitars and the intense drums throughout.  This may not be the intro I was expecting, but it ends up working great.  “Disgraced in America” picks up the pace a little for a very mellow Post Punk feel.  One thing that certainly hasn’t changed at all, is Tim’s vocal performances.  They’re still incredibly wordy, and his performances as a whole here are so animated and bizarre.  Almost a little too animated to be completely honest.  Here, they get so loopy and off the rails that it ends up overshadowing everything else here.  There are some really rigid instrumentals which almost have some math rock elements, and there's some very classy Sax lines as well.  But I feel like Tim’s performance is just too distracting, at least for me.  However, I would say there’s plenty to love on “Disgraced In America” in other areas, so I certainly see why people have been digging this one.   “Disaffection’ is up next, and I do really love the sound of this one.  The more upbeat and chaotic instrumentals are refreshing to hear, and while Tim’s performance is just as out of control, every other instrumental is equally off the rocker.  The wild synths and the bizarre lyrics are just the icing on the cake.  I feel like in a lot of ways this is the sound that Ought should be going for.  It still has the very tight, paranoid feel of their Post Punk days.  But at the same time, this remains so colorful and instrumentally the most intricate thing they’ve ever recorded.  I honestly love “Disaffection” especially Tim’s final freakout towards the end. 

    “These 3 Things” is up next, and as this album rolls on I feel like things just get more and more bizarre by the minute.  I do have to say though, the reason a lot of these tracks come off so bizarre to me is just because of how radically different this is for Ought.  This is easily one of the most synthetic and electronically tinged tunes that Ought has come out with.  However, call me crazy, but I feel like it actually adds a really great sense of Paranoia.  This track comes off almost New-Wave-y in parts as well strangely enough.  Ought are really onto something with this new, much more artsy approach.  Tim’s performance on this one is just so hypnotizing, but this also has a really fantastically dark undertone.  Not to mention, some of the solos are just freakish as Tim’s performance, it’s rather hypnotizing.  The more this album goes on though, I feel like Ought just gets more fearless.  “Desire” is up next, and I feel like in a way this almost comes off sounding like a Roxy Music cover.  It’s smooth, elegant, and contains one of Tim’s most heartfelt and emotional performances I’ve ever heard from him.  Half of the time he comes off so unstable, but on “Desire” he sounds so human.  This track is stunning, and I love just how subtle the instrumentals are and how they’re building up so slowly.  There’s a sort of epic feel to this, and while yes this is so much more on-the-rails, I do think Ought are onto something.  “Desire” is by far track of the album, and the choir that pops in behind Tim simply gives me the chills.  Even the band’s more steady performance here gives this track one of the least flimsy sounds of the album.  However, there is part of me that feels like Ought still has a ways to go in the world of Art Rock.  Obviously, they’re making a big splash with this album.  But then we have tracks like “Brief Shield” that are just completely awkward beyond words.  The pacing here just makes me feel like Ought is very unsure of themselves in this new sound.  Ad while I guess some of Tim's vocal harmonies aren’t the worst, he sort of sounds bored and not nearly as emotionally invested.  This track is just strange, int he worst way.

    The sort of rigid playing on “Take Everything” however gets me right back into the groove.  The instrumentals once again are a little hard to place between the wheezing synths (or whatever the hell is floating through the background) and the very tight drums.   Here, I feel like Ought once again has found a serious balance between their tight Post Punk and a more colorful Art Rock.  As “Take Everything” rolls on it just gets heavier and more chaotic, it just gets more compelling.  Not to mention, I really love some of the vocal effects of Tim’s voice.  Honestly, this may be one of Tim’s more subdued performances, but it goes with the very streamlined sound of this track very well.  Ought in general on tracks like this sound so determined, like they’ve been doing this style of music for years.  And that last chaotic breakdown is just icing on the cake, this one is a good one, my friends.  “Pieces Waster” is instantly just as compelling.  The band’s slower, more drawn out sounds are obviously a little more hit and miss with me.  But the performance here is just so bizarre and out there that I can’t say anything bad.  It’s hazy, almost psychedelic in parts.  Hell, there are some passages here where everything sounds like it’s melting around Tim.  But his very commanding performances keep this one under wraps.  For a fairly slow, on the rails tune, Ought seem to know exactly what they’re doing with “Pieces Wasted”.  Not to mention, Tim's final ghoulish moments here almost seem Goth inspired.  This album finishes off with “Alice”.  Once again, we’re dealing with a very dingy, dark, slow tune from Ought.  But I’m not sure why the way this track is presented is so synthetic that I’m sort of not into this.  I would have much rather have them gone with some more sweeping instrumentals.  Outside of that, Tim’s performance is chilling and seriously twisted.  If this didn’t sound like an instrumental that was made 90% on a laptop, this would have been a strong candidate for a stand-out tune.  But still, I love this tracks horrifying atmosphere and chilling performances. 

Rating: 7.8/10

Give a Listen To: “Into the Sea”, “Disaffection”, “Desire”, “Take Everything”

Genre: Art Rock / Post Punk 

Overall Thoughts: Ought on this new album give up on their chaotic Post-Punk sound almost entirely, in exchange for a much more Art Rock style.  And for the most part, they certainly do it justice.  But because this was such a major shift for the band, I feel like they did make a few hiccups along the way.  There were some occasions where I felt like they needed to bring in more of their classic style, and some occasions where quite frankly things got a little too weird.  But at the end of the day, Ought are clearly on to something.  These are some of Tim Darcy’s most emotional performances yet, and to hear the rest of the band follow suit and branch out into very artsy new levels is seriously something to behold.  I can’t wait to see where they take this sound next.