Oso Oso – Life Till Bones
Yunahon Entertainment
It’s starting to feel like Jade Lilitri was born with a bottomless bag of perfect pop-rock hooks slung over his shoulder.
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For nearly 10 years, the Long Beach singer-songwriter has been recording and releasing albums under the name Oso Oso, skillfully walking the lines between emo, power pop, and indie rock. After an embryonic debut and a very promising follow-up, Lilitri made one of the 2019’s best albums: Basking in the Glow, a radiant bounty of fuzzy guitars and earworm melodies that neatly splits the difference between the chug of the Get Up Kids and the twinkle of Death Cab for Cutie.
Lilitri loosened up and experimented a bit on 2022’s Sore Thumb, surprise-released after the death of his cousin and collaborator Tavish Maloney a year earlier. He’s also skipping a long promotional rollout for the fifth Oso Oso album, the 10-track Life Till Bones, which finds Lilitri back in his sweet spot: cranking out buzzy, hummable tunes that work their way into your brain and your heart in less than four minutes. Highlights include the propulsive rhythm and soaring chorus of “application,” a galloping fuzz-bomb of a love song called “dog without its bark,” and the bracing, slightly soul-influenced “skippy,” which buries arguably the album’s best chorus in its penultimate track.
Recurring themes on Life Till Bones include infatuation and, just as often, heartbreak and the hurt that precedes it. “I’ve got a lot to apologize for,” Lilitri sings against speed-strummed acoustic guitar near the beginning of “the country club.” Later, in “that’s what time does,” he compares a relationship to a sinking boat before delivering this highly relatable couplet: “I can’t be happy every day / I won’t always know what to say.”
Still, he’d like the chance to at least say it! “I try to hit you up then remember you’re not there,” he sings in “stoke,” using a series of rollercoaster riffs and melodies to create a cascading, collapsing feel, like trying to dig a hole in a bowl full of sugar. It’s an apt metaphor for Lilitri’s music—you’re drowning in (bitter)sweet sounds and loving every second of it. GRADE: B+
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