Black Sheep – ObLiveA (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

ObLiveA has been cutting an interesting, not to mention exciting, musical swathe through the musical landscape and also the expectations of the rock fraternity for a while now, and their latest single, Black Sheep, shows that they have no desire to stop doing so.

We know that rock music can be both big and clever, and Black Sheep is certainly that, but it proves something even more important. Although rock music is generally based on volume and velocity, quick musical hits and sonic sucker punches, and any number of tricks and moves to get noticed, ObLiveA has mastered a more interesting way to make their presence felt.

To this end, Black Sheep runs at a more moderate pace, seeming to crawl and snake its way towards the listener instead of firing off the usual incendiary salvos. And, rather than put all their energy into the pace and propulsion of the song, they instead use those forces to build upwards and outwards, creating a soundscape of monumental proportions. Whereas many bands might picture themselves speeding through the musical rockscape, Black Sheep IS the rockscape, a towering presence built of unfathomable proportions, large and looming, monolithic and primal. This is big stuff. So big, in fact, that even words like anthemic, cavernous or massive seem hardly to do the sound justice.

This is rock music that is reaching for the sky rather than merely racing towards the sonic brink. This blend of Luis Guaman and Benjamin Kyle’s raw and grinding guitar rhythms, Jonathan Reynolds’ thunderous drums and the depth-charge bass-quakes that Ben Chapman underpins everything with, this ebb and flow between the massive and the muted that creates depth and dynamic, and this almost shamanistic vocal evocation, makes this music of truly epic proportions.

But wasn’t that always the point? Wasn’t the notion of hard rock, heavy metal, and all the subgenres that those spawned always based on sonic weight rather than musical speed? That’s how I remember it anyway, and so with this in mind, ObLiveA is not so much exploring pastures new as connecting us with our half-forgotten musical roots. Actually, they are doing both. I do love it when a band can musically multitask like that.

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