Western Leisure by Oh Boland

Western Leisure, the dynamic third record from Oh Boland, is not just an enthralling document detailing the darkened corners and unseemly characters you often hear tell of in forgotten parochial towns of the past, but it marks the beginning of an exciting chapter in the band’s story. For close to a decade, Oh Boland have built their reputation on exhilarating live sets steered by frontman Niall Murphy’s frenetic guitar playing, paired with their intoxicating blend of garage-rock and power-pop. As well as thrilling audiences at their own headline shows, Oh Boland joined Detroit post-punk outfit Protomartyr for the U.K. leg of their 2017 tour, and have opened for Parquet Courts, Metz and The Undertones. They’ve also performed at several revered Irish music festivals such as Electric Picnic and Indiependence and took to the stage at renowned punk festival Gonerfest in Memphis, Tennessee.

Oh Boland’s sound has been described as having a “rare potency”, one that exists in their live shows and two records, their 2016 debut Spilt Milk which featured in Pitchfork’s “Best Underground Garage Punk Albums” of that year and its equally visceral successor, Cheap Things. Over the course of the Tuam-via-Dublin-based band’s lifespan, Oh Boland has existed in several guises and their forthcoming third record heralds a compelling new phase as the solo project of founding member, Niall Murphy. The self-produced Western Leisure (mixed and mastered by Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Total Control) signifies an electrifying artistic evolution spurred by Murphy’s unwavering musical curiosity which hears him experiment with wistful Country motifs alongside Oh Boland’s synonymous noise-rock tendencies.

Written over a handful of years, many of which were spent in solitude, away from familiar recording practices and live performances, the making of this record presented Murphy with opportunities to wholeheartedly engage in musical and personal exploration. Following a shift in Oh Boland’s line-up in 2018 and a period of touring, Murphy worked alone to create demos that would eventually grow into these ten simultaneously invigorating and introspective compositions. Drawing from a number of influences such as Robert Wyatt’s 1974 LP Rock Bottom, Arthur Russell, and Pavement’s sprawling and ambitious Wowee Zowee, Murphy describes how Western Leisure was shaped by a renewed approach and process to songwriting. “I felt unencumbered when I was writing these songs. I suppose, there’s sometimes an insular nature to making music, to have the necessary headspace to write. During that time, I was alone with a lot of records, listening to some different things and found myself naturally drifting outside of the lines a little bit to what I was used to doing.”

Venturing outside of his creative comfort-zone and with little expectation placed upon the outcome, Murphy was attracted to step away from well-trodden melodic structures and colour his arrangements with a more varied palette to previous Oh Boland material whilst maintaining their infectious pop-hooks and the simplicity and directness of punk; two of the anchoring foundations to Murphy’s engaging songwriting. A crucial influence on the record’s sound, which ultimately casts a brilliant unifying atmosphere throughout the songs, came from working within certain limitations, notably Murphy choosing to play drums and pedal steel for the first time. “I think that came from an idea I had where, probably from listening to too much Jazz, of wanting to be a lot more free-form with the instrumentation,” says Murphy.

The initial stages of the recording process featured Murphy and Oh Boland contributor Ross Hamer (Hamer Place) coming together as a two-piece comprised of drums and bass, to iron out arrangements and imagine the other components in their heads whilst playing. Text messages were exchanged about the work and the majority of the album was recorded over a 5-day period, which saw the involvement of Mark Chester of Autre Monde. “I wanted to maintain the consistency of this very insular group of songs and then the very insular process that made them,” Murphy explains. “The recordings captured for Western Leisure should be reflective of that. I was inspired by the likes of Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night and also Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers and how they sound like they’re falling apart and I was toying a lot with that idea and feel.”
The instinctual tendencies that steer much of Western Leisure’s instrumentation creates an irresistible air of spontaneity emanating from intricately and ambitiously layered arrangements like ‘The Cult of A Western Rail Corridor’ and the brilliantly expansive closing track, ‘A Parting Thing (Will Tow The Line)’. With the former, we get our first glimpse of Murphy delving into new sonic terrain by embellishing the song with rich Country motifs of mellowed pedal steel which are effectively contrasted across the record with Oh Boland’s mainstays of jaunty and propulsive guitar riffs. The immediately gripping opener ‘Grass Walls’ makes an impactful statement with its rollicking punk-inflected riffs and irresistible drum patterns, which carries over in the equally hook-laden ‘Here Comes The Order of Malta’.

Sonically, Western Leisure is an endlessly engaging affair and Murphy has masterfully broadened Oh Boland’s musicality. The “amateur instinct of playing” as Murphy puts it, adds great character to the songs and as a listener you cannot but help lean further into these vivacious worlds and become completely engrossed by their spellbinding intricacies. The jovial and jaunty essence underpinning Western Leisure’s infectious blend of 1970s-infused rock-riffs tinged with its country, pop, and garage subgenres, provide a perfect contrast to the often dismal landscape. Here, the town sinks into the bog and you’ll pass plenty of neon sacred heart signs as Murphy navigates this well-trodden terrain as the record’s elusive narrator.

Having left his hometown of Tuam, County Galway in 2019 and relocated to Dublin, the distance granted him a fresh perspective on the provincial conventions and community he left behind. Much like the development of the arrangements, Western Leisure’s lyrical style takes on a more inward approach. “I think it's more of a personal interpretation of the town,” Murphy says. Within that, we meet unusual figures scattered throughout the community and a looming darkness that hangs over their heads.
In creating the captivating world of Western Leisure, musically, Murphy explains, “Certainly, the overarching approach was seeing how far I could push arrangement ideas whilst retaining something that was reminiscent of what I've always written and try to be catchy, I suppose. I like so many different types of music and I wanted to try to include that in the swing of how this record sounds.” Whilst pushing the boundaries and potential of what an Oh Boland song can be, Murphy unlocked something extremely special with Western Leisure’s storytelling and made a body of work that is constantly revealing and evolving.

Showband Skronky Tonk

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