I'm encouraged by the increasing trend of bands who eschew the ultra-clean Pro Tools-style of production and instead wade knee-deep into the mud. It's never a bad thing to cultivate a sense of mystery.

Weird Omen Surrealistic Feast (Dirty Water)

And Weird Omen does not flash back to old school 4-track demo sounds or anything approaching that. There's just a hellacious amount of reverb in everything (even the occasional bari sax has been run through an amp)--though not much distortion. Weird Omen's take on garage psych is a lot more 60s than 70s. I'm just sayin', not making any sort of qualitative judgment.

I see a few reviews that reference the "French garage scene." I wish I could say where Weird Omen falls within that group, but I have no idea. These guys are French. They play garagey stuff with a psychedelic bent. The songs are long and occasionally drone-like. Kinda like if a garage band decided to become a jam band. Except that these songs aren't long.

So, yeah. Another take is that many of these songs are unfinished fragments, expositions on a single riff or idea. Which would be fair, but it misses the point. Weird Omen is, in fact, weird. Bands don't sound like this for good reasons, but these boys manage to pull it off. Now, if these guys really want to see how their stuff measures up, they should move to Austin. But I think they'd do just fine. This is music out of time.

Jon Worley