O ZORN! (2017) is a bearded and bass player-less trio kicking it in the LBC - Long Beach, California in the US of A. They are mixing bloody heavy rock stirred with metal and post-punk. I questioned who delivers the bottom-end goods since it appears O ZORN! saves themselves the 4 way gig band split and forgoes having to pack a bass player off to their shows when- I'll be jitterbugged - I find the answer to this riddle on the band's Facebook site. It appears one of the lads has a 4 pole bass pickup mounted on a regular 6 string guitar, LOCAL H freaky stylee. Far out man ¡!

We'll meet again, I'm on to you ..."Your Killer" immediately goes for the brown note with a serious bottom extension on the mix - WOW¡! I had to turn the volume down on the dani bandolier low-fi to pack all that lovely bottom end - an end that I surely do loves - into my listening studio. "Your Killer" reminds me of FOO FIGHTERS when they bring the angry rock without getting on the pop rock ferris wheel. The key here is that I hear some resemblances in the music and song, but O ZORN! winds this WAY up on the agro-meter, WAY past these similarities, casually throwing petrol bomb serenades.

Roll out the death machine ... "Casket" transforms into a looking glass isomer version of NIRVANA. Instead of soft-hard-soft dynamics, O ZORN! Does hard-insane-hard song dynamics.Maybe it stinks for awhile ... Ode to shit corporate capitalism "Bandini Mountain" illustrates the downhill effect on us with Bill Kielty's unsane howlings performing battery command for Danny Walker's drum artillery. The rhythmic bombardment moves the furniture in my studio, such is the seismic effect. God bless you, and that´s about it ...I'm buried ... I'm shallow...

"Cult Status" fires a sludge torpedo and hits below decks. I dig this song and its insidious inflection. The situation's gotten out of control ... "Loved" is the rock 'n roll song of the lot that could be a castoff from a KILLING JOKE session. I see religion in your future ... falling ..."France on Foot" is a grinder - good lawd I hear Kurt's voice in this song with the melody and stylistic vocal distinctions.

Go get some soap! Go right ahead! ..."Secret Santa" shows singer Bill Kielty sounding so much like Kurt Cobain at his most unglued I get the wee hairs on me arms standing at attention. This song is perfect - pace, vocals and little flourishes of leading guitar pedal drones that leave space for the eerie vocals mixed way in the background. I am a huge NIRVANA fan and I am way down with this tune, my favorite.

These lads in O ZORN! are ex-punk and hardcore bangers that musically moved on from that scene but never completely grew out of it. Lead throat Bill sounds at times like a manic Dave Grohl and at others like a young and deranged Kurt Cobain before the drugs took him down on a one-way ride into Doperland; like Kurt, his voice is the strongest instrument in the band. I don't know if Bill can speak a full sentence the day after a gig - make that 3 days. His vocal fabric is comparable to 3 yards of concrete and gravel being chuted from a cement mixer. The twin guitar attack of Bill and Billy Meyer is a measured and merciless one, throwing linear chromatic crosscuts that connect at the jaw. And there is the bass player-less approach to the music ... tight as a fresh coat of 40Hz paint.

I always wondered what a band would sound like what was obviously influenced by NIRVANA without ripping them off down to the last nuance. O ZORN! is that very band and they do it with LBC style. I recommend this release, it rocks. I've come to ask if you would like to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you, and I know you'd like my Spotify playlist  ...

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/272H3UBARsuksY3BqU0CzP?si=R9bRfLLrTiiL2aC1Yg4QPg