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'Borderline' CD crosses musical lines"
Author: Scott McLennan (Telegram & Gazette)
Published: April 29, 2003
In the never-ending debate over whether a band is best judged by its albums or its live performances, the group Ozma currently is banking on its studio creativity.
"Spending Time on the Borderline" is Ozma's new compact disc, to be released a week from today. The young California quintet belied its homey, independent-rock roots and made a record that is bold and imaginative, full of sweeping gestures and detailed with such flourishes as strings, horns, marching-band percussion, Rhodes organ and New Wave-era synth burbles.
But at the heart of each of the dozen tracks on the disc is a melody-rich and lyrically strong song. "Spending Time on the Borderline" is the sort of marriage between style and substance that is all too rare in rock 'n' roll right now.
"We feel a little odd in the music scene of our age group, the early 20s," said Ozma singer and guitarist Ryan Slegr. "The band started when we were all a lot younger, and we still hold on to the ideals we had in place back then."
Slegr, bass player Daniel Brummel, drummer Patrick Edwards, guitarist Jose Galvez and keyboard player and flutist Star Wick formed Ozma is 1995. Slegr said that when Ozma first came to gether, its members "bordered on being music Nazis."
"We thought there was only one kind of music," he said. "That gave us our confidence."
The band's power-pop integrity captured on its debut CD, "Rock and Roll Part Three," caught the ear of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo. Ozma found itself opening for Weezer on two national tours.
Last year, the band made ""The Doubble Donkey Disc" and hooked up with the Warped Tour, a summer caravan of punk, indie pop and assorted other leftfield musical styles. That was all it took to make sure Ozma's confidence didn't turn into arrogance.
"It was a slow realization along the Warped Tour that other kinds of music were good. It's not that we loved all the bands, but we gained a lot of respect for the different genres," he said.
Ozma was humbled at turns. Slegr said the Warped kids, at times, did not respond to Ozma's music, and bands that Ozma considered lightweight were blowing it away in terms of crowd reaction.
Ozma chose to fire back with this new studio project, its second for Kung Fu Records. Most of the songs on the disc weren't played live in concert before being recorded, and about half were aired in rehearsals for only a week be fore the band entered the studio.
"We just prefer making music in the studio right now because there is a freedom in terms of putting ornate detail into the music," Slegr said.
Ozma used that freedom to travel to rustic spots heard on "Come Home Andrea," and explore such anthemic peaks as "Eponine," and to reveal barbed outposts such as "Turtleneck Coverup."
Although rich in texture, "Spending Time on the Borderline" never feels overdone or self-indulgent. The disc simply chugs along, taking its listeners on a short tour of pop bliss.
Ozma is trying to figure out how to get across the songs from the new CD in the concert setting. A spring tour launched out West brings Ozma to the area tonight for a show at the Middle East nightclub, 472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge.
Slegr said he understands that a concert audience inevitably will gravitate toward a screaming guitar part or monstrous melody; and some of Ozma's music has those ingredients. But for those who want to peer more deeply into the songs, there is a lot more of which to take notice.
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