Oh, Sleeper
The Armored March

2.0
poor

Review

by Waior USER (107 Reviews)
September 1st, 2009 | 51 replies | 9,121 views

Release Date: 2006 | Tracklist

Review Summary: When I Am God, sludge edition.

1 of 1 thought this review was well written

When I refer to Oh Sleeper's 'The Armored March' as sludge-y, I don't mean it in the typical realms of "sludge". I don't want you to think of post-metal and I don't want you to think Mastodon. I want you to think of poor production values, sloppy musicianship and overall murkiness; the essence of Oh Sleeper's debut EP 'The Armored March'. Those familiar with the band's pleasing debut full-length 'When I Am God' will immediately be familiar with the entire track list (it does, after all, appear in it's entirety on the record) but they will not be at home with the careless execution of some of When I Am God's best songs. Take, for example, the song 'To Flagship': on 'When I Am God', it's one of the album's highlights with it's stop-and-start composition and multiple time changes but on 'The Armored March' it plays like cough syrup; raw and painful in all the wrong ways, bitter and thick in the worst of way possible. By playing many of their songs at near half-speed, many of the songs have yet to gain their eventual intensity and in turn become drawling metalcore jams that dwindle aimlessly in a poorly-produced maze of dissonance and Botch-isms.

The problem isn't the songwriting though -- listening to 'When I Am God' vindicates that fact. The problem isn't the vocalists or instrumentation either: Micah Kinard proves that he doesn't need a fancy production to achieve his thick and raw vocals, Shane Blay proves he's not a tone-deaf dread-head and every musician (except the inaudible bassist) is clearly well-versed with their respective instruments. So what went wrong? It's possible that the lack of togetherness is a result of being an extremely young band in terms of their formation and it's even possible that part of 'When I Am God's success comes out of smart production and studio sheen on behalf of Solid State. The truth is, most of the EP is rather garage band like; an undercooked microwave pastry. Regardless, 'The Armored March' at best represents the leaps and bounds Oh Sleeper took on 'When I Am God' as far as execution is concerned -- and it's also pretty alienated to listen to after hearing 'Son of the Morning'.

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Review

Oh, Sleeper
The Armored March