Otobo are a promising young Albany, New York outfit, making music that is far out. They have an uncompromising—almost stubborn—vision of what their music should be, which explains their eccentricity. But, as demonstrated on this sophomore release, they also want to make music that sounds good, and they don’t let this drive become overshadowed by the loyalty to their vision, so you are not left with just a whole lot of weirdness and not enough wonderment.

Disco Rally is hard to pin down. Its compositions have a “progressive rock” complexity, where the songs seldom follow a predictable structure and flow from one to the other as if the album is best appreciated as a whole. Just by its unconventionality, the album has an overarching heaviness. However, the music is always fascinating—and even catchy at times—with something or other in every track to hook you.

The album’s blend of ambient electronic textures with natural instrumentation has an earthly spaciness where the band’s sharp musical performance—which has a real sense of gravity—really reels you in, instead of the music just floating in space waiting passively for the listener to grab onto it. The band’s performance is complemented with its dual vocalists Josh Thorsey and Justin Holden, who, even despite their different—sweet and gloomy—vocal styles, have a down-to-earth “indie rock” relatability.

The challenging tracks on the album might not be as immediately satisfying as the relatively simpler ones (like “Empty Rooms” and “Explosion”), but they still have plenty of enticing moments. For instance, “Vesper,” a chill-out electronic track, has a “background music” vibe, but then its jazzy drums catch your attention. Then its long saxophone parts kick in, and you really start to wonder what’s going on. The electronic sparseness that turns cinematic on “Chroma Birdsong” is hard to comprehend at first, but impossible not to find fascinating on a level that cannot be explained. “High Hopes,” the album’s most difficult and most rewarding number, baits you with its awesome guitar hook that comes in at an aggravatingly long 2.5 minutes after the song begins, and then again with a rousing jam session with gloriously wild saxophones.

Once the catchy parts of the album open the door for you to appreciate the eccentric ones—the actual core of the album—you realize that this promising little act not only has the ambitions of well-established genre-defying visionaries in the progressive rock space, but also the capabilities to deliver its lofty vision, uncompromisingly and brilliantly.

Rating: A-

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