On The Verge

O’ Death

Brooklyn, NY
Offbeat Americana
www.odeath.net

O’ Death formed on an artsy college campus located between upstate New York and Brooklyn, so it makes sense that the group’s sound is a comfortable mix of rustic instruments and urban clatter. After fine-tuning its trademark blend of folk, bluegrass, swing, jazz, gypsy-punk and metal in college, the band relocated to New York and quickly honed its live skills by playing 100 shows in 2006 alone. “Sometimes we get into a certain part of a song where we can feel it physically, as well as musically,” guitarist Greg Jamie admits. “It’s important for a performance to have a visual element, but I think we all just try to keep the music as honest as possible.” That honesty is evident on the band’s accomplished 2008 release Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin, a high-energy, 14-track set that contrasts fiddles and banjos with metal and punk riffs. The group also recently spent time working on a split 7” with Murder by Death—which finds the two bands covering each others songs—and kicked off 2009 by announcing a string of high-profile dates with Les Claypool. “Primus is unusual, interesting and hard to define,” Jamie admits. “And I would like to think people would say something similar about what we offer.”