3 out of 5

Label: Joyful Noise Recordings

Produced by: Chris Cohen

Upon hearing the initial single off of Ohmme’s third album, Fantasize Your Ghost – ‘3 2 4 3’ – I was partially elated, and partially had a response of “uh oh.” When bands hover on the edge of eezy-squeezy pop, for those of us who prefer that edge, there is the looming threat of that band deciding to teeter off and land on the softer footing of more typical pop. They might maintain their smart lyricism, or nuanced songwriting – whatever brought us to listen in the first place – but there’s now a candy coating that dispels some of the initial magic.

And that was my Uh Oh. Ohmme – guitarist and singers Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, accompanied by others – ultimately still sounded like the band of their previous EP and album, but ‘3 2 4 3’ had a candy coated sheen to its guitar pop; a pep to its step that avoided more directly showing off the band’s roots in the Chicago art scene. This becomes even more apparent if starting the album from the top, with ‘Flood Your Gut’ using a similar formula, but the followup noise-rocker ‘Selling Candy’ having its edges very much softened, and further tracks down the road glitzed up with some electronic polish to the bass and drums making the duo in line with St. Vincent’s work from the same era. Even a song that should be completely outre – the clattering instrumental experimentation of Sturgeon Moon – feels like it’s been shaved down to fit into a four-minute single, sandwiched between two gentle, acoustic-y tunes.

As suggested above, this doesn’t trounce the stuff that made Ohmme great: Sima and Macie sound great together; there are some whipsmart lines; and songs are generally centered around a good hook. So I do think that there was a purposeful dichotomy pursued on ‘Ghost’, pairing its pretty amusingly brittle relationship and social commentary with the sing-song nature of the tunes, doubled down on in the album art which has some interesting imagery – our leads in white; bundled in a further coating that may also be fabric but looks plastic-y, containing them in a way – and promoted by the artwork’s bright colors and groovy font. And producer Chris Cohen has worked in this pleasantly folksy realm; while I might disagree with the overall mix and sound of the record as being wholly effective, it’s in line with this concept.

But the effectiveness obviously has to play a part, and I really think there was a way to achieve this same pop-but-not vibe without losing some of Ohmme’s defining edge.