Monday night at Countdown Stage was an exercise in maximalism.
Before the Swedish hip-hop trio ODZ came to their meeting at 23.45, the audience was mostly in front of remnants from the previous number, the Danish pop experimentalist Debbie Sings. Debbie brought dazzling maximalist hyperpop – a disorienting, mesmerizing work of glitch magic that must have killed any epileptic in a 10-mile radius.
The show was as much performance art as it was a festival rouser.
ODZ, then, brought a deeply different approach to ball-out acting.
If Debbie Sings makes supersaturated internet pop for art students, ODZ’s target audience leans more toward tough party princes who rinse off their house keys before going through airport security.
Party music for junior addicts
The three Swedes took the stage with a bit of fanfare and fought in their first moments a bit to create momentum with the audience. But after getting a burner number out of the way, they rolled their rumbling, uptempo hit ‘pSyKoSeN‘, which made the noisy masses simmer. The audience tumbled in fist-pumping ecstasy as ODZ paraded on stage, shifting to breathless to gain their expertise in the topics of pills and oral sex. Their simple ‘ODZ’ letterhead logo was projected in a dull little screen in the background, bouncing around like a standard screen saver.
ODZ’s lyrics are predictable, their themes are tired, and their sound is not revolutionary. What they are, above all else, is loud. It’s music you expect to hear blast from a Soundbox in Nørrebroparken, or rattle with the tinted windows on a BMW sedan.
Loud, noisy and more of the same
In their honor, however, ODZ are good at waking up the audience. Their beats are thunderous and noisy with swaying electro bass woofs that are ideal for festival speakers. As each lane reaches a build-up, the crew works on the crowd and gathers the troops with a “four three two one!” countdown just before the beat hits. It’s the same gut feeling you get on top of a Turbo Drop voltage ride while the hydraulics hiss and you wait for the tower to crash you back to the ground.
But ODZ is a one-trick pony, and the news value is starting to wane. The gnarled, thunderous drops lose strength when they mix, highlighting the one-dimensional of the group’s gimmick. When they shut out with their best banger, ‘ANNA BOG‘I feel like we’ve already heard this one.
Did ODZ attract a crowd? Yes. Was their performance anything more than a loud noise? Not really.
But sometimes, often around the eighth or ninth beer, a loud sound can be quite funny.
Source: The Nordic Page