Anyone familiar with Ogre—the formidable solo artist and frontman for electronic-rock avatars Skinny Puppy—would expect that at this juncture in his long and storied career, he’d, you know, chill out. After years of delivering intense physical performances and lyrical mise en scenes framing mankind’s thoughtlessness, one would hope the singer would maybe buy a log cabin up in the mountains, take up an acoustic guitar and prepare a disc’s worth of Appalachian folk songs recorded on wax-cylinder technology.
Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen. Fortunately, the frontman for ohGr is ready to unveil his debut solo disc for SPV, Devils In My Details. If the previous ohGr disc, 2003’s SunnyPsyOp, was an old-school electro-influenced affair with a twist of anxiety and a few dashes of neurosis, ohGr 2K8 is an emotionally beaten vessel that deceptively looks as strong as a kitten—barring the massive subterfuge he’s about to unleash upon you. As captivating as Devil In My Details is musically, Ogre sees the disc as an opportunity to clarify some things.
“The personal is visceral and has shock value to create a longer narrative art,” he explains. “I think a lot of people perceive my character—as well as my role in Skinny Puppy—as scary and spooky. But the character I’ve created all these years ago is mirroring the things in the world that scare him and reflecting that fear into the world. It’s an externalized manifestation of what’s going on his head, whatever it amped out to. That theme is pretty common to me but on this record, it’s being fleshed out in a conceptual way. It starts out in a place where you’re consumed by whatever it is that’s happening around you—which you internalize. Then you add things to it that creates an externalization. When the externalization comes through, things start falling apart and eventually you’re stuck in a place where you have to look within to save your life. At the end, there’s a hope that there will be a witness somewhere to validate your experience.”
If Skinny Puppy comes off as a sensory assault at face value, ohGr’s Devils is like a small child skillfully concealing a bloody cleaver behind her back. The disc is filled with a great sense of whimsy and abject terror—think Clive Barker producing a Syd Barrett album. Recorded in a marathon Pro Tools session with longtime creative foil Mark Walk, Devils In My Details was actually realized as one long work before its creators wisely broke it down into 11 tracks. Ogre and Walk’s m.o. was to create an immersive experience similar to classic ’70s concept albums (Ogre cites Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and titles by the Alan Parsons Project as personal favorites of his youth) and 21st century videogames. “What makes for an immersive experience these days?” the singer asks, rhetorically. “It’s videogames. There are a lot of sounds within Devils In My Details that will stick in the consciousness of new listeners.”
The proceedings begin with “Shhh,” a brisk martial blast that evokes everything from glam legends the Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz,” Ministry’s “Jesus Built My Hot Rod” and vintage Wiseblood-era Foetus. “Feelin’ Chicken” is a jaunty tuba-punctuated track, seemingly sung by a deceptively friendly persona who helps you with your taxes, volunteers for the elderly and just happens to be an expert in waterboarding. “Timebomb” is pure tango for cybernauts and the ambient grittiness of “Smogharp” is in heavy rotation at the radio station in Purgatory. In addition to all of the intricate sonic landscaping Ogre and Walk have crafted, the album is further heightened by the spoken-word performances of Bill Moseley. Moseley—known to many as Chop Top from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and a staple in Rob Zombie’s early films—contributes wondrous imagery to give such tracks as “Psychoreal,” “Timebomb” an extra resonance. (Ogre appeared with Moseley and Paris Hilton in Repo! The Genetic Opera, a Blade Runner-meets-Rocky Horror Picture Show horror epic being released by Lionsgate in early November.) At first listen, Devils In My Details seems to encapsulate everything fulfilling about Ogre, artistically, spiritually and emotionally. Personally, he’s glad he had a chance to make the effort.
“I’m grateful to be able to make a record like this,” Ogre says, lucidly. “If we were in any other situation, the standard model is to write two hit singles and fill in the holes as best you can. That’s the mode a lot of musicians are in right now. We’re trying to do things from the heart, regardless of what the commerce end of music dictates.”
Fortunately, the mania of Details dictates that Ogre takes his Technicolor neurosis out on the road. With a live lineup that includes such Puppy alumni as guitarist William Morrison and drummer Justin Bennett, ohGr will remain musically solid while making sure Details are magnified with the assistance of everything from new stage technology to the participation of chaos magicians. Yet Devils In My Details is a rare thing in this day and age of proscribed musical formulas there hasn’t been a headphone-driven mind movie this compelling in recent memory.
“I hate talking about myself,” Ogre resigns, “but Devils In My Details is probably the most intimate excursion inside my head ever. I hope people will see a human in all of this, because [this album] is a very human experience. I want this record to take listeners on a trip that’s cohesive all the way to the end. This is the closest I’ve ever come to realizing the sound that’s in my head. I’ve never felt happier about any recording I’ve made in my life before.”
Devils In My Details: Come for the trip, stay for the music. Some psychic travel required.
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