Ought are a lazy music journalist\u2019s wet dream; “they sound like David Byrne had a child with Mark E. Smith and hid it for 30 years in Thurston Moore\u2019s monitor amp.” Add between three\u00a0and five more comparisons, and recommend that any self-respecting post punk fan buy their discography immediately.<\/p>\n
But part of what makes Ought stand out from the mob of artists trying to gain such praise, is that they are more than the sum of their influences. Sure, the vocal delivery of \u2018On The Line\u2019 is reminiscent of Smith\u2019s, the lyrics on \u2018Beautiful Blue Sky\u2019 sound like something Byrne could have written, and the electrical storm of guitars on \u2018Men For Miles\u2019 suddenly swallows the elsewhere-stabby instrumentation in the same way that Moore\u2019s guitar work can. Yet, at no point do they sound like songs by The Fall or Talking Heads or Sonic Youth.<\/p>\n
Ought\u2019s debut last year established a distinctive and fully-formed sound and, unsurprisingly, given that it follows hot on the heels of its predecessor, they are working with the same pallet on Sun Coming Down<\/em>. There is still tight interplay between the rhythms and counter melodies of the drums, bass, guitar and organ. This is particularly pleasing in the uncharacteristically pretty ballad \u2018Passionate Turn\u2019. Each element is equally weighted in the mix and there is no extra instrumentation, giving them a raw, live feel. This is compounded by the jammed-out noise sections such as those on the title track.<\/p>\n As on the debut though, the star of the show is vocalist Tim Darcy; he\u2019s blas\u00e9 one moment and intense the next, listing dull conversational topics as if they\u2019re sources of inspiration and barking common idioms for seemingly no reason. Their comic appeal is upped from the debut, but not to the point where it comes across as contrived; rather, Darcy sounds more confident, as if he isn\u2019t holding back.<\/p>\n I\u2019m often dubious of quick follow-ups, but spontaneity suits Ought\u2019s style. Sun Coming Down<\/em> is not as well put together as their debut and by track seven I was begging for some variation. However, ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’, ‘Men For Miles’ and ‘Passionate Turn’ are amongst their best work yet. It\u2019s the sound of a band that is totally comfortable within its own skin and that is too excited to stay still.<\/p>\n 7\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rob Paterson review’s Sun Coming Down, the new album of band Ought<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1480,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[11748,11749,1422,1011,11750],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15065"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}