Opening Without Your Love with a cameo from Butterclock, a Berlin-based collaborator who whips cotton-candy love-trips out of sleepy melancholy, was a smart move for oOoOO’s Chris Dexter. Even as an early adopter of the once-trendy witch house’s echoing hysterics, Dexter’s music always sounded best when love was involved and there was someone there to help drive that stake through his heart. His earlier solo work was easily lumped in with the subgenre he refused to associate with, but with the help of vocalists (and compelling vocal samples), oOoOO has always sounded like something bigger than a fad.
With his debut full-length, Dexter’s ear for dramatics is stronger than ever. He hasn’t strayed from the dimly lit brooding that took over oOoOO and Our Love Is Hurting Us, but in the years since his style has moved out of the spotlight, the musician has figured out what he wants to do with it: go pop. He’s mentioned a local train outside of his apartment window as inspiration while working on the album, saying that the clattering on the tracks stopped him from dozing off. That dynamic is key here: Much of this album is a haze that sucks you in only to push back out when the listener comes too close to being enveloped in its cloudiness.
Where Dexter's catalog has a tendency to quicksand around drone-like samples, the production on Without Your Love is more focused than it’s ever been. On “Misunderstood”, one of Without Your Love’s strongest tracks, the bass is enunciated as a wind of muted synths sprawl in the background; once you start wondering whether or not the climatic waves of chopped vocals crooning “Maybe you misunderstood” is a Brandy snippet from “Boy Is Mine”, you’ll be doomed to listen to the song on repeat. But it’s here where Dexter's R&B flair comes through; when his vocal manipulations are as strong as his production technique. “Stay Here” harkens back to Our Love Is Hurting Us’ “Break Yr Heartt”, and “Without Your Love” is practically cheery.
There’s no way to avoid the gloom though, and with it, the witchy, goth tropes to which oOoOO has invited assocation. With the album being released on Dexter’s own Night Feelings, he’s undoubtedly trying to break out of that mold. But the dark, gut-flipping menace pulls through despite the cleaner production. “Crossed Wires” is a staticky call from some sort of haunted monastery, warped chanting and all. “Mouchette” floats airy croons and waves of synths over a fantastic hammering of industrial reverb. “The South” takes another route, blending stuttering beats and flying wails into a trap instrumental that could easily host a rapper or two.
It’s unclear if oOoOO has larger pop aspirations, or if he’s making tracks with vocalists to play with the idea of straight R&B or rap production. If nothing else, songs like “Across the Sea”, with its sauntering groove, melodic keys, and pitched-down vocals do feel like an ambitious go at indie-pop songwriting. Still, the ideas on Without Your Love are a little too disparate to indicate what he’s getting at. The sequencing helps, making a story out of songs that would otherwise feel uncomfortably out of sorts. But while, overall, this is the strongest collection we’ve seen from oOoOO, it’s still difficult to tell what direction he’s trying to lead us in. Without Your Love ends up becoming a loose survey of Dexter's work instead the Nihjgt Feelings statement he intended it to be.
