Ozma preview

Ozma
Beat Kitchen, Chicago
Saturday, July 7, 2007

Sound-wise, the parallels between Weezer and Ozma should be enough. If one of them have a “z” in their name, so do the other. Rivers Cuomo even speaks of Ozma in an iTunes store blurb as “beating me at my own game.” In 2007, Weezer’s “Beverly Hills” meets Ozma’s Pasadena (About A Girl).

Don’t worry, Weezer are safe for the time being. Ozma’s fourth album — first since their ’04 breakup — is a snappy pop nugget, but kind of begins as a creepy one. Opener “No One Needs To Know” might take cues from “Tired Of Sex,” but it’s ashamed of itself . . . and the potential ick factor could have your skin crawling. Elsewhere the band glide over Cuomo’s geekdom with soaring generalalities and vague anthems (“We gotta fight the darkness!”) in place of quotidian ennui and solipsism.

Pasadena embraces California and its idealized American McDreaminess, real or not (something alluded to in their early history as they stacked up Back To The Future references). On “Underneath My Tree” — a reverie about a fallen city “built on rock ‘n’ roll” — broken hopes don’t dissaude Ozma from trying to resurrect their Shangri-La. It’s almost as if they’ve pinned their hopes on being the movie version of Weezer — the original proposition they’ve perhaps been missing all along.

This is an early show, separate from the Textbook Committee gig later the same night at Beat Kitchen. Eastern Conference Finals and The Actual will open.

— Kevin Keegan

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly