Orson - Bright Idea

It is hard to believe that as recently as the end of last year, Orson were an unknown LA band, who raised the funds to fly over to the UK and try their luck here. According to the band’s website they paid for the album themselves and it cost them $5000. I don’t know if they had an extra cash injection since or whether they just got good value for money but this is a very slick, well produced and put together CD for such a sum. Currently the band is supporting Robbie Williams on his tour of Europe. Most tracks are written by the bands vocalist Jason Pebworth.

The album opens with the band’s second single the strong and catchy Bright Idea, after which this album is named, followed by their debut single No Tomorrow. Both are strong pop/rock tracks that are instantly catchy. Happiness is a very Seventies influenced guitar led rock track which is to be their next single. This is followed by Already Over, a mature rock track that sounds like it should belong to an older rock band doing huge stadium tours. That doesn’t make it a bad thing however, as the track is really catchy.

The bulk of the tracks on this CD are very much rock led and generally are very catchy but there is not a huge variety. Downtown follows on from a similar vein to Already Over, whilst Trying To Help is more rock ‘n’ roll. So Ahead of me has a good beat to it and you’ll find yourself tapping your feet until it gets a lot heavier at the end and is followed up by Last Night and then the gentle Look Around. This is followed by the lively Save the World.

I notice on their website and on other shopping sites that an eleventh track called Okay Song is listed, I have only heard a short snippet and it seems very listenable. This track is not on my CD which I bought at Cd-Wow, so that is something to look out for. You can hear snippets of all the songs on the band’s website: http://www.orsonband.com/orsonband.htm

Generally not all the songs are as strong as the first two singles, but after two or three listens the rest of the tracks really grow on you and I am glad I bought this album.