Obnox

Reviews

Obnox Savage Raygun 2xLP

A wildly schizophrenic album for a tremendously fucked up year. My mind has been working overtime since the beginning of 2020 and it seems that LAMONT THOMAS’s brain has been, too. Fortunately, he got some of those thoughts down on vinyl. The sounds OBNOX presents on this double LP take a while to digest. So take your time with it. Try listening at different times of day and in different settings. Use headphones or blast it out of a crappy boombox. There are psychedelically mellow guitars, whispered vocals, receptive drum machine beats, chaotic noise and funky bass parts. The record does not stop giving. For me the simple one-two-three shot of “Heaven,” “Misery” and “Return Fire” just about sums up my 2020 (lack of) thought process.

Obnox Savage Raygun 2xLP

Pretty rare to complete a calendar year without a new record by OBNOX—a.k.a. Bim Thomas, formally known as Lamont Thomas, formerly known as a drummer for bands including the BASSHOLES and PUFFY AREOLAS—but that’s what we got, or rather didn’t get, in 2019. Dude is back in a big way here though, with a blazing 20-song double-LP that zips by to the degree where the running time isn’t any kind of drag. There are more boom-bap hip hop beats than on any previous OBNOX release, with Thomas showcasing his MC skills with justifiable confidence, but these jams are never any kind of purist anything, with bolts of reassuringly raw garage guitar setting multiple midpaced bumpers aflame. Conversely, psych-punk melters like “Catbird” and “She (Was About That Life)” are bolstered by sick headnodder funk backbeats, and there’s even a NEIL YOUNG homage in the form of “Young Neezy,” not that you’d imagine Neil’s fanbase would much approve.