Ovlov – Am

The perfect album doesn’t exist – but, oh wait, it does. It’s right here.

Ovlov is all-in-one package of indie, rock and noise from Newtown, Connecticut. They’ve been recording since 2009 and dishing out EPs, splits and LPs in between years, with their latest album TRU out in the summer of last year. Their stuff has been reviewed by Pitchfork and is available for sale from Exploding In Sound Records. Exploding in sound is a perfect way to describe the band’s music.

I’m very passionate about their 2013 album Am because it bridges the noisy fuzz reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr.’s You’re Living All Over Me with the energetic tempos of contemporary pop and indie rock. It’s a perfect balance of woolly guitar sound, heavy kick-and-snare drum beats and satisfying, rock-and-roll chord progressions that fill your ears with bright, blinding warmth. Like a chemist concocting the perfect formula, Am uses every ingredient to its fullest potential.

The album is characterized with a shoegaze-y sounding guitar played through what sounds like a million pedals. Steve Hartlett’s guitar fills rooms like moisture fills the inside of a humid greenhouse and carries the bridges of songs with elaborate solos while Theo Hartlett on drums and Jon Hartlett on bass sustain the beat. Though being a noisy band, Steve’s soft vocals are very distinct and clear through the dreamy fuzz.

Am provides a good variety in the pacing of its songs. The highs and lows in tempos during the album are comparable to a what a distance runner experiences during a marathon. While "Nu Punk” and “Really Bees” are short, quick and intense bursts of energy, other songs like “Moth Rock” and “Where’s My Dini?” are cool down periods in between the climaxes. This makes the album recommendable to put on during a jog - I guarantee that it'll enhance your runner's high.

However, the album isn’t as diverse sonically. There are 10 tracks and each of them use the same dreamy, floaty guitar that I’ve been hyping up for the last few paragraphs. In an extremely lazy and not-very-well-thought-out way of putting it, this album is just quick tempo shoegaze (and that's not a bad thing.) Even Dino Jr. included something like “In A Jar” in between their fuzzy songs. However, the sound of their tracks get cleaned up in TRU while keeping their boosted volume.

The band itself breaks up and reforms often for different reasons as well. Though the Hartlett brothers and their friends get together sometimes to put out a recording, they don’t have the stable platform or the commitment to tour. As their article in Exploding In Sound says, “While there may be a lot of bands, there is only one Ovlov.” So Ovlov and its recordings are scarcer, but that scarcity adds a value of its own.

It wouldn’t be a diamond if it was easy to find anyways, would it?