Omi Palone - s/t - Tape (2011)

Labels: self released
Review by: Andy Malcolm

Here’s some folk from London making some pretty fun and poppy indie punk. It’s not a million miles away from the Wedding Present, all jangling away nice and smartly, with a deep vocalled young man providing the words. If this fellow ever finds himself in the unfortunate position of being out of work, he could probably find gainful employment in a Doors cover band. Another reference point for Omi Palone’s sound would be various Flying Nun type bands from the 1980s, although I am still woefully under-informed when it comes to that label so I won’t embarrass myself by attempting to make specific references. Opener “œWhirlwind” has a dead nice repetitious section that I found somewhat hypnotic. This tends to be a little feature of their music, reminds me of Real Estate in that sense. Just a little drop out and changing of the focus, before we suddenly drift back to where we were a moment ago.

Only 5 things here, all nice and brisk and a fine introduction to a band who have their chops pretty refined already. For a demo this is decidedly impressive, the recording is spot on for a band doing this kind of thing, and the song writing is confident and ready to roll. I have no idea if Omi Palone was together ages before releasing this, it certainly feels further along than most other first releases you hear these days. Just remains to be seen if they could deliver the goods over a full length, I hope that’ll be the case.