That was quite different from what I normally review! Hailing from Portland, Oregon, multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards& drum programming) John, O'Mara is presenting his first album called Five Year Mission. For this first album, he was helped by another talented musician named Sean Fiora handling all the instruments but the vocals.
Five Year Mission was tagged as being: Post New Wave. It is a blend of the 80's Talking Heads with earlier Bowie's style circa Young Americans . This last reference is prevailing throughout the album, especially in the vocals. Then you have a song called "Satellite Radio", which seemed to be taken from Ziggy Stardust when the chorus starts : "You're Not Alone". In general, the feel of this album is pretty laid back and flowing nicely, suiting a relaxing Saturday afternoon in your hammock. A couple songs have an upbeat / danceable edge, especially on "Amiss" and "Your Sister". Fortunately, this is not a generality on this release. I enjoyed the darker work much better on this album with tracks such as "Drowning", and "Fear of Mass Transit". Although my favorite song of the lot is the quiet, acoustic bluesy number on track #9, "I Saw You". The Multi-instrumentalist thing has become more and more the norm in the Black Metal scene these days, but it was a nice surprise seeing that other, less extreme genres could present the work of talented musician as well, which is a wealthy sign!
Well done Mr. O'Mara, and keep up the good work!
Track listing:
1 - Your Sister
2 - Amiss
3 - Hold Me Down
4 - Happy Hour
5 - Drowning
6 - Made of Stone
7 - The Broken Part
8 - Fear of Mass Transit
9 - I Saw You
10 - Satellite Radio
11 - It is Done
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