OHGR DEVILS IN MY DETAILS ALBUM SPV RELEASE: OCTOBER 21, 2008 REVIEW: OCTOBER 24, 2008

Where's the detail? More importantly, where is the devil? Insipid, bland meandering tracks comprising an album is not what I'd call "experimental", nor is it the antithesis to the pop formula Ogre has schilled along with on his last two solo outings. If this does not prove once and for all that Skinny Puppy is Ohgr with Key as a member, I don't know what will.

He tries, he really tries to beguile and fool the listener into thinking they're beholding something grand. This is not grand, this is not "daring", it's not even dissident. What it is is annoyingly calculated. Take a song like "Pepper", it clearly is meant to conjure the ghost of something long dead but all I can hear is that annoying tendency Mark Walk has to play with tension in a most commercial and uninteresting way. I can hear classic rock references in abundance, the one thing I do not find is any kind of creativity or vision. Ogre does his damndest to sound alienated, to channel chaos as he used to effortlessly.

There's a smugness about what he does, an expectation we'll all fall in line without question. This isn't the 90:s anymore, Nivek. Your bag of tricks is thread bare. Thankfully Download and Plateau have new albums planned for 2009.

The sights have been set upon increasing marketshare of the band name, that is all one can say about "Devils in My Details". Who this will appeal to is quite obvious: the hip who want to keep holding onto a persona that has been gone since "Last Rights". Those days are over, everyone. Let's try to keep moving forward. Just because noise is being played around with does not make an engaging album. By the time "Witness" belches out of my stereo, I'm looking for the icepick to jam in my ear. Intricate sonic landscaping my ass.

PETER MARKS