There's a backwards-looking quality to many of Denmark's biggest indie exports. Figurines and Alphabeat play garage rock like it still has something to prove. Efterklang and Mew look back even further, as if striving for the breathtaking sweep of medieval Scandinavian epics. Both of these tendencies collide in Oh No Ono, who crystallize all kinds of 1960s moon-fluff into chipper psychedelic pop. There are bold indie rock songs nestled in the volcanic special effects and choice arrangements.
Oh No Ono's 2008 debut album, Yes, emphasized grooves, like Junior Senior with more Strawberry Alarm Clock than Jackson 5 influence. Eggs plays down the dance beats, favoring slashing guitars, dry vocals, and stereophonic razzmatazz instead. For the detail-oriented listener who doesn't mind androgynous singing, it's a treasure trove of baroque trivia; a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum of sound. Marvel at the intricate pitch and tempo bends of "Eleanor Speaks"! Thrill to the impossibly detailed musique concrète bridge of the Stereolab-ish "Swim", where birds chirp, a coin drops and clatters to a stop, something rips, and water pours, each conspicuous yet on-rhythm! On headphones, it's like Avatar in 3-D: You aren't always sure what the hell's going on, but you don't care because you're so immersed in the wraparound mayhem.
For an "odyssey of sound"-type record, Eggs is admirably song-focused, and divested of any but the tastiest excesses. The timbres are varied, the melodies are broken into shards, and the drums primed for holy war-- yet all of this serves to accentuate strong through-lines, not to disguise their absence. Tower-of-light synthesizers dot "Icicles", throwing the rest of the song into shadow. "The Wave Ballet"'s choral vocals confidently reach a soaring Broken Social Scene-style culmination. Throughout, the heavily treated vocals, often blended cunningly with computer-y blips and distortions, supply some genuinely catchy moments amid all the arch orchestration, especially on full-throttle rockers like "Helplessly Young" and "Miss Miss Moss". Still, this isn't the kind of stuff you're going to walk around humming. It's too weirdly shaped to really abide in you-- you have to be willing lose yourself in it instead.
