O'Death

New York outfit O’Death contains vocalist/guitarist Greg Jamie, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Gabe Darling, fiddle player Bob Pycior, bassist Newman and drummer David Rogers-Berry. They have evolved the possessed Americana-meets-gypsy-punk of recent years into a more urgent, unrelenting celebration of life, death and everything in between.

For their latest album, the musically diverse Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skins, they’ve recreated their live fervor in the studio. And although it may be the same lineup, the band that plays on Broken Hymns isn’t the same ensemble that formed in 2003 at college. In that time, they’ve evolved. “After Head Home, we only wrote three songs that year,” says Rogers-Berry. “By the end of that year, I was like, I don’t know if I can do this project. This is making me really crazy and sick and I don’t like it. As soon as we started writing new music again, I was like, That’s why we have this band. Playing music is the only thing that matters to me.”

In the end, they finally created an album that captured who O’Death is as a band—their dark side and their hopeful nature. From the oompah-pah of “Mountain Shifts” to the gypsy violin of “Home,” it also shows the breadth of their musical command.