Ostmoe
Ostmoe
Monogram Records

Ostmoe is Thorleif Østmoe doing everything himself, in the best Prince tradition: writing, playing, singing, arranging and producing. And of course, he also did the cover design. Brave, you can't blame anybody else ... The CD itself looks like a slice of lemon - cute.

The opening track, Out Of Here, is basically a 70's guitar riff spiced up with well known psychedelic tricks like sitar sounds and sliding wah-wah guitars. The riff itself is semi-catchy, but doesn't shake any foundations. On to High Ride which is a bit more anonymous, a rather straight AOR take, a little boring to these ears, in spite of the vivid guitar solo. Years is slower and echoes Pink Floyd most of the way, without impressing much, until another crafty guitar solo comes along. Light Of The Day goes nowhere in particular, except the guitar, which goes backwards. At The Point is a rather boring ballad, with synth strings! Shadowland is a bit more noteworthy, but also somewhat unfulfilled - you're kind of waiting for the song to go further. With Welcome we're back to Pink Floyd, and I even caught myself expecting the lyrics to go: "welcome ... to the machine." The synth sound leaves no doubts about its origin. Not bad, but of course, Pink Floyd already did this a lot better decades ago. Spacemaker is a (spacey) sound collage and finishes the album.

Generally, a somewhat synthetic drum sound is present throughout (the snare drum sound is particularly annoying on parts), which does not quite benefit this kind of music. The rest of the playing is competently done, so how about renting a drummer next time? Anyway, there are room for improvements here, but I think Ostmoe will need input (both production-wise and musically) from others to make a really interesting album, although this debut-CD also documents that Ostmoe is a capable musician with lots of ideas.

You may visit Monogram Records for more info and samples.

Copyright © 1999 Knut Tore Breivik