OK Go is one of those bands I find myself listening to, but never truly feeling any emotion or connection with their music. True, “Get Over It” forms part of my guilty pleasures playlist for strange reasons I can’t even express, but nevertheless, OK Go is a band that always makes me wonder what their musical identity is.
Of the Blue Colour of the Sky is the band’s third studio album produced by Dave Fridmann, the man behind great albums like MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular, The Flaming Lips’s The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. The album is a conceptual interpretation of General A.J Pleasonton’s The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Ski, a compilation of numerous passages written by different authors that gives facts and research on topics varying from physics and general health. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky is the bands greatest work to date, by a landslide. The album has a connecting thread that guides its listeners from song to song without leaving anyone dazed or confused like much of their earlier work. The album is musically interesting; it delves into this new electronic age we’ve been in for awhile now, but it begins and ends there. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky doesn’t feel original, but nowadays originality in the mainstream world is not as important as it used be.
The lead single, “WTF?” is full of static and layers that hide Damian Kulash’s vocals making it fun for awhile, but ultimately it just is; no rhyme, no reason. The album continues onto “This Too Shall Pass,” which I see as a perfect song for a car commercial or one of those drink commercials where people finally liberate themselves from their boring offices jobs into the streets, dancing. “All Is Not Lost” is just a continuation of the last song while “Skyscrapers” does a complete one-eighty into a cool jazz tangent, which coincidentally does not feature much of Kulash’s voice. The song transitions into “White Knuckles,” a continuation of a happier sounding “Skyscrapers.” Again, we are thrown into the OK Go “Blender of the Unknown” where out comes a futuristic, auto-tuned song “Before the Earth Was Round,” a song about the sadness of loosing humanity. “Last Leaf” was a nice departure from all the computerized instrumentation into Kulash’s raspy vocals and guitar. The album is closed with “In the Glass,” the album’s best song. The song has a very dark tone that is enhanced by the electric piano. Also, the lyrics were compelling because each of us look in the mirror everyday to asses “what have we done?”
It was difficult to judge the album by itself without populating my thoughts with their earlier work, but as a band that has recorded three albums I found it necessary. The album is not an impressive piece, but it entertains the ears for awhile.
