Download: Olentangy John “Daniel”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(from O! Be Joyful out now on Trailer Fire Records)

Punctuated by subdued swatches of night insects trilling like static, Olentangy John’s O! Be Joyful writhes with penetrating sincerity while avoiding the affected backwoods burlesque that might be expected from a trucker hat wearing, bearded banjo act from Los Angeles by way of New York. Neither city leaves even a lingering influence on this album. Instead, it feels like the campfire is down to its last embers, the wine is gone, you’re all alone, and if you died, your body wouldn’t be found for weeks. It describes solitude without succumbing to hollow desperation—going so far, maybe, as to suggest solitude as the solution to desperation.

John commands a small battalion of instruments but never forces anything from them. The guitar in the title track is the picture of restraint. But for all its lucidness, its constantly-approaching darkness, its beautiful ruralities, O! Be Joyful could benefit from more songs that curl their lips and kick shit around, such as “Daniel,” an accusatory but apologetic cascade of clawhammer banjo and damnation. Unfortunately, we get only a few glimpses of this higher pace.

—Gerard Olson