If you’re anything like me then the tag ‘folk music’ conjures up images of farmers, checked shirts and things happening with sheep that really shouldn’t be. However this traditional image of folk is now outdated. O’Messy Life hail from Sunderland of all places. That said, even a Geordie like myself has more sense than to judge a band by its origin – and a good thing too.
Green Posies Grown Gangrene Below ‘Em is a wonderful little gem of an EP. The opener, ‘Permanent Threshold Shift Blues’, is a great building folk number that sends out a terrible message to the music loving kids of today saying “pass that remote my love/and I’ll turn the damn volume up!”, but saying it with such passion that you can’t help but think “f*** yeah!”.
Each of the four songs on this EP has its own special charm, be it this attitude mentioned before; the very dark edge to ‘House that Howls Built’; the combination of falsetto vocals and a Buddy Holly style riff that creep into ‘Be Well (Well Song)’; or the masterfully unique decomposition into a mixture of noise and French in ‘The Great Decompose’. This EP is well made and generally impressive and promises great things for the future from O’Messy Life (even if they are from Sunderland).
Words: Robbie Hayward