An Uninspired Repetition

At what point does something cross the line between persistent and obnoxious? While the question may flit between multiple answers dependent upon the effort put forth, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez seems hell bent on making a scientific attempt. On what is at least his fourth studio album of 2016, ORL again puts forth a maddening cacophonous “attempt” that reveals little of the talent he possesses and aggressively suffers from his notable inability to edit himself or his work in any meaningful way.

From the first moments of the opening track, “Bitter Sunsets” this album gets off on the wrong foot. There is no moment where it reaches out and snatches your attention, and at the same time there is no slow build for atmosphere; instead the guitars wheeze to life like the engine of a dying car. The key is turning in the dashboard and the pistons misfire and cough themselves into some cruel imitation of a running engine. The album refuses to improve from any point past this, on songs like “Changes” the vocals often distorted to the point of incomprehensibility, a decision that seems ill advised considering the general cacophony that eternally permeates the track listings. The guitar work is clearly technical—that much can be said at least—however technical proficiency should always take a backseat to actual songwriting, a lesson that Lopez has not only failed to learn over his last four albums but a lesson that he has seemingly regressed on. The result of this is an impressive but ultimately indecipherable mess of picking and tapping that does nothing to create a pleasant or intriguing atmosphere.

Yet despite these numerous flaws, the album’s prime offense is its inability to innovate. Lopez, if nothing else, has spent the year creating interesting and flawed albums, and each attempted to do something new or engaging. These attempts, however misguided or poorly executed they were, succeeded in that regard, and could at least be viewed with some favor as a result. His latest album, on top of being his least enjoyable release of the year is also his least ambitious, merely taking the scatterbrained concepts and instruments of his previous works and vomits them into a single vile package. The album has the same jangly guitars being plucked with wild abandon (see “Zophiel”), it has the same distorted vocals, the same wild orchestration and the same clanging piano. This is an album that should’ve pushed forward if nothing else, instead it is both poor and boring.

Lopez is still an innovator and it will take more than a weak 2016 to bury his memory and influence. This album is just further evidence of him throwing things against the wall until something sticks, but the pile is beginning to grow around his waist while the wall only shows a few specks. The point of being obnoxious passed ages ago, something better stick soon, because this certainly hasn’t.