Album Details

• Artist: Oui Party
• EP:
Wax
• Label: Independent
• Year of Release: 2011
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: carlito on 2011-03-08

I'm starting to see a lot more of the "name your price" model for buying digital albums these days--especially in the indie scene.  Oui Party is no exception as they drop their WAX EP, allowing you--the listener--to place the value of their music as you deem appropriate. 

That said, the seven song download has a strong opening with "Education".  This is a fun summertime track you want to have in the car on your way to the beach.  It's followed by "We Don't Talk About It Anymore", which is just as strong.  The chorus is simply repeating "We don't talk about it anymore" eight times really fast, which would definitely make this a fun track for them to play live, and have the crowd join in (if they can keep up).

OP's overall sound is garage-styled rock, complete with a lo-fi finish which is generally charming, but can also trick your ears into thinking you need to turn the volume down, when in fact, you don't.

"If I Was Wrong, I Wouldn't Know" is a nice acoustic ballad break from all the energy in the other songs.  It picks right back up though with "Wax".  This is a fantastic tune with plenty of dynamics, and then it flat out switches gears at 1:45, where it morphs into this really cool mellowed-out groove.  Probably my favorite on here.  The album ends with "Spinners".  I found the opening of this one worthy of mentioning with its unique and surprising horn riff.  The song is slow paced but gets so incredibly noisy by the end, it borders on annoyance.

Oui Party is a great band for sure.  I enjoyed most of the EP.  I wasn't crazy about "French Curves" and "Grey".  And I normally can't listen to too much lo-fi distortion before I have to just shut it off, and throw on some album that has perfectly balanced mixing.  But I might be alone on that one, as the "blown-out speaker" sound is extremely popular at the moment, across multiple genres. Overall, Oui Party has the potential of being a band you will love for years to come.  Wax is just the teaser.  Definitely worth more than what you will probably end up spending for it.

http://ouiparty.bandcamp.com/

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