Review Summary: To anyone who enjoys indie pop, or is looking for something with emotional and musical punch, sacrifice 19 minutes of your day to check out /Overthunk/. I promise it's worth it.
Oscar Lang, in a word, rocks.
*(This is my first time writing a review for a recent album, so bear with me on this one.)*
While you might know Oscar Lang for his version of The Moon Song with beabadoobee, his musical prowess reaches far beyond a cover from your favorite Joaquin Phoenix flick.
Lang describes Overthunk as “influenced by my previous indie-pop sound but mixed with some 60s folk and psychedelia that I grew up listening to…” The style as delivered by Lang is executed perfectly, and builds wonderfully on bops, etc., his previous EP.
Overthunk opens with Flowers, a fun, head bopping jam that sets the stage perfectly for the rest of the EP. While Lang uses Flowers to sing and scream (tastefully) while rocking out, it also allows you to ease into the remainder of the album, which progressively gets slower and sappier.
Easy to Love follows, and while it is much more toned down in energy than Flowers, it’s still a bop, which makes the transition between the songs pleasing. Here, Oscar sings of coming to terms with a former significant other in his life, and the track is gorgeous.
Back to back with Easy to Love is January Leaves, which is a heart fluttering transition, and where I believe this EP climaxes, when boys turn into men, and when men cry. Oscar sings passionately about when you just generally feel *** when the weather is also *** -- he does a much better job conveying the message than I. This song is almost too good to effectively describe.
*Those first three tracks are the most played of this EP for me; they stand on their own as songs you can play in many moods and the effect shifts with you. I like to call this the Mr. Brightside effect: when a song is written with one mood in mind, but has replay value over a plethora of moods. However, the final two tracks are fantastic, and vital to the EP as a whole. They just don't have the same infinite replay value or versatility.*
The next track, Feeling Like a Rose, continues this EP’s slow transition into slower and sadder songs, and then mid track, picks up some speed again. While this is perhaps the EP’s most sad song lyrically, it doesn’t quite topple January Leaves in its’ effect. However, this track perfectly complements the two preceding it, and together they act as a beautiful trifecta of songs about love, and are the real meat and potatoes of what Overthunk is at its' core.
Acting as the finale to Overthunk is Applaud, a psychedelic-ish song that nicely ties the album together, and utilizes the speed regained in the middle of the preceding song to continue the EP's trend of clean transitions. Track over track, the album’s themes have become more and more specific to Oscar’s experience, which culminates here with a song all about his personal struggles with happiness, performing through the pain, and all the times he's *overthunk* things (roll credits!). Again, Oscars passionate delivery over a finely tuned track makes for a heart wrenching experience, and a satisfying end to the EP.
Here’s my conclusion on Overthunk: it’s a damn near perfect project. This easily could have been a much longer LP, but by keeping the track list short, Oscar Lang has removed any and all filler, and it’s immediately clear that every song on this album is not only fantastic, but necessary to create Overthunk as it is.
This is Oscar Lang at his best; the lyrics find the perfect balance between being interesting yet comprehensible, the tracks blend and transition nicely from one to the next while maintaining individuality, and most importantly, the album has stylistic cohesion.
To anyone who enjoys indie pop (especially that from the UK), or just feels like listening to something passionate, punchy, and concise, sacrifice 19 minutes of your day to check out Overthunk. You won't regret it.
