Back in 2006, when quartet Oh, Nina! released debut album called
Enjoy the Euphoria of Anti Cliché, their musical direction was britpop and alternative rock influenced. However, when Yosa and Dhanas left the band for whatever reason, the remaining members - Marselinus Krishna and Arief “Auf” Nugroho - have decided to change the direction into electropop. Wise choice though, if you could not find a suitable replacement, why don't you play a kind of music that suits duo. That might be so what Krishna and Auf Nugroho ever thought before working on any Oh, Nina! follow-on album.
Naturally,
Highway plays out like previous album,
Eppi Space Creature: ZAAPP...!!!, the two are alike not only in conceptual but also aesthetic aspect. However, in this album, vocals are delivered in the same approach; slow-mellow and a sort of melancholic that perhaps will captivate the sentimentality side of your heart, but never saddening. The smooth cohesion between that vocalization style and synthesizer sound makes
Highway pretty pleasurable and generally easy to listen to. Besides, all tracks are also pretty linear in quality, and so far it's hard to decide which one is better than others. By listening to this 15-minute mini album, even at the first spin, you will easily understand that
Highway basically is never meant to be a kind of futuristic electronica, or something experimental with all of super complex arrangement dispositions. It's not heavyweight electronica stuff. It's just simply enjoyable and fun record to listen to, particularly whenever you wish to relax, away from maddening busy hours at work.
In closing,
Highway is a great continuation of Oh, Nina! musical journey. As an entertaining record it has quality but nothing groundbreaking. Especially for Auf and Krisna, this release means a lot because it shows how firmly established they are as electropop duo. Well, if you like this, then you should dig
Eppi Space Creature: ZAAPP...!!!, too. Once their music has already become your kind of thing, their 2012's forthcoming release indeed deserves anticipating.
