Oh No! Oh My!: Between the Devil and the Sea

Oh No! Oh My!’s eponymous first album got a lot of attention in the blogosphere for its pop hooks and childlike giddiness, not to mention the often tongue-in-cheek lyrics. Well, now they’re signed to Dim Mak and back with their new EP, Between the Devil and the Sea. Both the title and EP’s sound suggest the band wants to be taken more seriously with this release, but they often get in the way of their own objective. Opener “Oh Be One” seems like a heartfelt pining tune at first, and the instrumentation is the most solid effort on the disc, but it becomes apparent that song hinges on a silly Star Wars reference, “Oh Be One you’re my only hope.” It’s too bad that the song gets undercut by that, because as a straight-up love song it would play nicely. Later in the disc, on “The Party Punch”, the band sings about a girl at a party who invites everyone to raise their toes up in the air. It’s really the typical weird-girl-who’s-not-that-weird track that should be left to the pop-punkers. In the end, none of these five tracks are bad, in fact they can be quiet catchy (like on “A Pirate’s Anthem”), but overall the band can’t help but stumble over pop culture references and irony and it’s really too bad, because this EP could be great if they made the listener believe, even just a little, that Oh No! Oh My! cared about these songs.