Album Review: The Ooga Boogas - Ooga Boogas

The first album from Ooga Boogas' Romance And Adventure came out at a time when Australia could not get enough of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and as a result the very faithful jumped straight into a record that was permanently attached to the phrase 'featuring Mikey Young from ECSR'. Also thrown around with reckless abandon was the phrase 'supergroup', which the respective members of The Onyas and The Sailors must have thought was pretty funny. Although there were elements of Young's general production values throughout, it really had nothing to do with ECSR, and this one is even further removed.

Ooga Boogas throw away conventions about genre with no regard. Circle Of Trust rocks a distorted bass line and some jerky guitars yet somehow sounds like Devo. The eight-minute somewhat electro epic, Sex In The Chillzone, takes Billie Jean's drums and rearranges the same song's bass line slightly and the band groove out over dubious mumbled lyrics. Nothing seems to be off limits or too stupid. They revel in dumb country on Ecstasy and jazz grooves on FYI. On one of the album's highlights, Mind Reader, the narrator accidently eats his partner's ice cream on the way home from the shops and drugs her while they watch rom-coms.

But the garage rock is present in small doses - the opening bars of A Night To Remember do resemble ECSR if only because of the familiar guitar sound. As soon as the singing and the rest of the band kick in it becomes Ooga Boogas and nothing else. Their sound is so well realised and natural that even while jumping around styles and ideas like kids with ADHD it all works and sounds like them.