By: Victor Van Ommen
Album Type: Full-Length
Date Released: 26/02/2016
Label: Exile On Mainstream
This record
has the potential to speak to many of us heavy rock fans despite its level of
sentiment and sparse use of instrumentation. There’s passion and well-placed
emotion that resonates through these songs. They’re deliciously fragile because
of it. If that’s your thing; if you can appreciate singers baring their soul
with nothing more than an acoustic guitar as accompaniment, then this one’s for
you.
“Future Fables” CD//DD//LP
track listing:
1. Hole
2. Piece Of Heaven
3. Killer
4. Spin
5. Wake Up
6. Empire
7. Golden Future
8. Slide
9. No Easy Way
10. Fools
11. Strange Alchemy
12. Make Some Room
The Review:
On “Future Fables,” we have Conny Ochs and his guitar taking a seat next to us on the
couch. That’s how close and personal these twelve tracks feel. He has the
capability to hush the crowd and demand attention without needing to stomp on a
distortion pedal or rip his vocal chords to ribbons.
There’s
nothing psychedelic here and if it’s heavy you’re looking for then you’ll find
it in the mood and not the tones. “Piece
of Heaven” plays out to a familiar song structure – interchangeable verses
and choruses – and uses a full band to do this. “Fools” does the opposite by employing its verses to set the stage
for the chorus, and does this successfully with just two guitars and powerful
vocals. Ochs’ best qualities come out in “Killer,” a song with finger snapping,
light drumming and a bluesy walk around the guitar. Though the song threatens
to break out in the chorus, it never does and that’s one of its strengths. “Spin” uses beautiful vocal harmonies to
call the listener to “put your hard rock music on,” which
hints at Ochs’ underlying influence.
Despite his
hard rock soul, these are gentle songs that are soft to the touch and therefore
inviting. It’s only once the listener allows himself to be enveloped by Ochs’ voice, lyrics, and overall presence that the
melancholy rises to the surface. This puts Ochs firmly into the
category “singer-songwriter” but he’s able to stray from the drek that the
mainstream pushes our way and thus avoids sounding like a limp dick resting up
against your ear. Instead, Ochs flexes his muscles
by using his acoustic guitar to tame the beast that is an emotionally wrought
songwriter.
This record
has the potential to speak to many of us heavy rock fans despite its level of
sentiment and sparse use of instrumentation. There’s passion and well-placed
emotion that resonates through these songs. They’re deliciously fragile because
of it. If that’s your thing; if you can appreciate singers baring their soul
with nothing more than an acoustic guitar as accompaniment, then this one’s for
you.
“Future Fables” is available here
