Ohhms is now streaming their new single "The Mephisto Waltz" and it's practically begging to be blasted at the loudest possible volume. From its gritty production to full-bore riffs going non-stop, to the earworm chorus you're absolutely going to be singing for the rest of the day, there is nothing not to love about this song. Though considering Ohhms' trajectory of only getting better and catchier as the years go on, this isn't shocking. Dudes just keep honing their skills to a finer and finer point.
"Each song on the album is about a different horror movie," said vocalist Paul Waller. "Simple as that. Also, they are named after the horror movie they are about. The Mephisto Waltz is a 1971 occult horror movie that is about a music journalist that sells his soul to the devil in order to be an excellent musician himself, in this case on the piano. With our back catalogue being so heavy in theme and the world news being so heavy in the past 2 years to the current day we just want to have fun going forward."
For a little context, The Mephisto Waltz was directed by Paul Wendkos and starred Alan Alda, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins, Bradford Dillman and Curd Jürgens. The movie follows a concert pianist named Duncan Ely, his daughter Roxanne, an aspiring concert-pianist-turned-music-journalist named Myles Clarkson, and his wife Paula into a world of Satanism, suicide, and murder. The movie's soundtrack was also written by Jerry Goldsmith (Gremlins, Logan's Run), who also wrote the theme for the Universal Pictures logo used between 1997 and 2012.
Ohhms will release a new album in 2023 via Church Road Records. In the meantime, I strongly suggest you go check out their other material over on Bandcamp. Close was one of my personal favorite records of 2020 and is still in pretty heavy rotation.
