Brad Oberhofer is the brains behind Oberhofer. Using your surname as your moniker is hardly an original ploy, but it’s enough to create a ripple of intrigue. Suddenly memories of Chrome and Helios Creed come flooding back, but Oberhofer isn’t part of any avant-rock syndicate. Rather than scraping your cranium with shards of rusty wire, Oberhofer chooses to apply a creamy orchestral introduction before invoking Buzzcocks leader Pete Shelley on Nevena. Hardly a match made in heaven, but it works.
Oberhofer recorded over 100 demos from which he culled the dozen tunes that appear on this record. While you could say he is prolific, Memory Remains sounds like a cutting room floor leftover from The Killers’ debut. And just as that record mined ‘80s new wave, so too does Chronovision. Someone Take Me Home straddles a little Bowie for good measure; Sea Of Dreams is at the vanguard of plaintive reminiscence, combining the vision of Dylan’s Series Of Dreams with Presley’s Falling In Love; then the military style percussion of Ballroom Floor commences an unstoppable advance. “You’re like a ballroom floor,” is a novel analogy to for a disintegrating relationship.
While Oberhofer started his career as a bedroom bard, he has since completed a composition and music theory degree, so he’s not just some weedy, lonesome introvert with a badly tuned guitar and borderline manic-depression. He very plainly puts things into perspective on Me 4 Me (“I just want someone who loves me for me,”) before heading off on a cosmic journey with Sun Halo and a groovy twist on hippy jingle. Ride into the sun with this boy.
BY BRONIUS ZUMERIS
