Guster - OOH LA LA (May 17, 2024) Album

This Heart is Occupied
When We Were Stars
All Day
My Kind
Keep Going
Gauguin, Cézanne (Everlasting Love)
Witness Tree
Black Balloon
The Elevator
Maybe We’re Alright

 

Songs are nice even if they don't immediately grab me, but I'm looking forward to the album and really looking forward to seeing them at Red Rocks in August.

 

This is a pleasant enough listen, but it's very much in that spacey, reverb-heavy mode they've been in for the past couple albums that I don't find super engaging. A lot of cool stuff going on in "Witness Tree" though.

 

It's way too low-key for me. Happy for them, but nothing for me here.

 

unfortunately, after one listen thru to this I'm feeling the same way... bummer, because I really am a huge fan of these guys. I'll play it again on my commute home from work Monday afternoon when I'm stuck in traffic and usually trying to relax / keep my BP down. give it another chance then.

 

I listened to this album a few more times, and I have to say that I didn't give it enough credit at first. yes, it is much more mellow and low key than I was expecting / hoping for, and it's definitely very spacey and ethereal sounding, but there is only one song out of these ten that I am not really crazy about. the rest are actually really good. I find myself singing almost all of these songs throughout the day.

ultimately though the album ends up feeling kinda slight and short. I get the idea of quality over quantity, but in my opinion they left two of the best songs off of Look Alive with “Zeno” & “When You Go Quiet”, which is a strange choice when the album is only nine songs long and barely half an hour - makes me very curious about what other songs they were working on for this that didn't make the cut. (maybe 1 or 2 where we can hear Adam a little more?!?)

 

After going back to it a bit as well, I think the last four songs are really good.

 

deluxe version of the album called Ooh La Luxe coming out January 24th. Adam played a new song called "It's Wild" for them on the radio. audio quality is TERRIBLE but I really liked the song