“The first rock band I fell in love with was U2,” lead vocalist Jimmy Gnecco of the summer bloom group, Ours, confesses in his press release. With a fan base crying out for more in New York, the band’s debut album, Distorted Lullabies has found its way into my hands as the summer draws to a close.
Nsync fans and sunshine junkies beware of this freshman effort. Cloaked in burgundy undertones, Ours weaves lyrical combinations of self-loathing and anguish in and out of tracks that inevitably leave the listener clinging to the last notes like a pacified lamb.
The album opens with immediate intensity heard through instrumentals which applaud their own acoustics. However, it is Gnecco’s voice, comparable only to the likes of a lovechild spawned from U2’s Bono and Radiohead’s Thom York, that transforms silence into vivid heartache. It is his almost beastly, agonizing howl that tears us through the first track, “Fallen Souls” with the words spoken again and again, “Suffer, Suffer.” The first single “Sometimes” has found its way successfully onto several of Albuquerque’s airwaves and MTV2 with its Poe-like chorus “Sometimes, sometimes, sun shines, but did you give up on it all?,” while the track “I’m a Monster” brings the listener “the sound of a broken man clinging to the legs of a butterfly.”
The lyrical content is clever yet simple, and at times, blunt and uninhibited with lines such as “How could I really have died/And why am I dancing alone/I can’t feel my hands.” Many of Gnecco’s words appear as though they have slipped from his lips to his microphone without a second guess, “I am like a cable/I am like a girl soft inside.” This album is a good one for fall, as it is mature and has a depth that many of the bubbly summer tunes lack. It challenges the listener with underlying themes ranging from self-worth to fear. “I enjoy feeling sad sometimes,” Gnecco said, “because at least then you’re feeling something—you know you’re alive.”
Distorted Lullabies, with its melancholy air did grow on me, but for now, while the sun still shines I still opt for a few summer bubbles. When the rains come calling, the leaves start turning and my mind’s smile needs a rest, I’ll render Gnecco’s vocals useful again. Perhaps I’ll have some Cognac and a cigar to boot. Let the tears flow.
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