Cullen Omori

New Misery

Another skinny indie kid singing about love and the human condition might not sound essential, but Omori has decided to take the high road and craft something special.

Omori has documented the recent past into a musical diary of sorts that rivals the likes of Kurt Vile or Christopher Owens in its no holds barred honesty.

Denser than any of their three albums, ‘New Misery’ blends catchy solos, beefy drums and thick synth parts indebted to Spiritualized and OMD with Cullen’s voice – which remains evocative of some dreamy American high school utopia.

New Misery may be uneven, but it confirms Cullen Omori has a musical future one might not have expected based on the Smith Westerns.

New Misery is a woozy blend of upbeat pop sensibilities lined with distant vocals and edged with electronic frills.

A solo debut that functions as a bit of a reinvention, for better or worse.

New Misery’s filler doesn’t lie in the songs themselves, but rather within them, the predictable indulgences of both solo albums and transitions from guitar to synthesizers. 

Without any momentum for the listener to latch onto, the songs become formless, their traditional structures never brought to life by any kind of tangible hook.