Geggy Tah
INTO THE OH
(LUAKA BOP/VIRGIN)

Amiable hippie rock doesn’t get better than this follow-up to Geggy Tah’s 1996 CD Sacred Cow, the album that propelled the band onto the charts with the hit ode to a considerate motorist " Whoever You Are. " The vibe is relaxed and gently psychedelic throughout these dozen new songs that take shape around the spine of singer Tommy Jordan’s cool, flexible voice, which strays from its breathy melodies only to cop the falsettos of Marvin Gaye and Al Green on numbers like " Holly Oak. " The bleeps in the digital-age love song " One Zero " may have you checking your cell phone for messages, but otherwise the band do nothing to trick up their statements. When Geggy Tah want to get trippy, tablas and Pink Floyd organ riffs make the scene. When sex is the subject, Jordan turns on the soul-singer signifiers and the groove becomes a slow deep grind, aiming to convince us that " Sweat " is indeed " the perfume of love. " The sincerity of these strummed stories about romance, memories, and quirky behavior is quite charming. Geggy Tah’s literalism is something they share with Luaka Bop label boss David Byrne, and it makes for unruffled, easy listening. But Into the Oh does suffer from a lack of surprises of any kind.

Issue Date: June 21 - 28, 2001