Oh - Sugar Mous Album Review

Review of Oh, Atoms single 'Sugar Mouse' released through Columbia.

They always say that the front cover of a book can be quite deceiving, and that analogy can be applied to music too. Take Oh, Atoms for example. For starters, their name implies some kind of art-rock combo that only Nathan Barley type scenesters and those with a curious disposition for tuneless noise made by five haircuts in ill-fitting skin-tight clothes would find appealing.

However, on closer examination, all of the above couldn't be further from the truth if it hitched a lift to the other side of Liarsville and beyond. Instead, what we have here is a splendid example of how lo-fi folk can sound without having to resort to half-baked witticisms or unnecessary maudlin rhetoric. Imagine Leslie Feist serenading Stephen Malkmus with Slow Club providing the backing instrumentation and you're halfway there.

Title track 'Sugar Mouse' is the jaunty yin to b-side 'Let's Go Away''s more melancholy yang, both equally as proficient though when it comes to highlighting two completely different sides to this Texas duo's imaginative make-up.

Although not always the most revered of genres, Oh, Atoms make the 2009 variant of folk sound more than just slightly interesting, whilst obviously creating their own rumour factory in the process as to whether atomic duo Gwen Cheeseman and Marc Withecomb are getting it on for real.

7/10
Dom Gourlay