Oh My God

Oh My God is Kevin Morby’s attempt at crafting his own post-modern American Songbook. The sound of a succinct vision--executed precisely as intended.

Not a single cut on Oh My God feels out of place. Each song is effulgent in its composition and intention.

While Morby's earlier concepts might have seemed somewhat looser and more liberated from the self-imposed constraints of such a project, Oh My God also feels like the apotheosis of his multivalent approach to the construction of music and myth. He is truly at the top of his game, and one can only stand in awe of this accomplishment.

Oh My God, the dizzying and fantastic fifth album from the increasingly prolific folk-rocker, is preoccupied with the language of exaltation, from its gospel-choir refrains to its outrageous album cover, which depicts Morby, shirtless, posing beneath a famous painting of Saint Cecilia playing piano for the angels. Somehow, none of this scans as ironic or overtly hokey.

Exploring his spiritual side, Kevin Morby has shown us the light, and it’ll lift you up, comfort, and enlighten.

An artistic achievement for Morby, this record commendably establishes him as a mainstay in modern music.

[The stories] are universal and they are forgiving, and only a songwriter as soft and deft as Kevin Morby could have pulled it off so charmingly.

A non-religious religious album might seem like a conceptual dead end, but this is another accomplished set from a master songwriter.

One of his strongest bodies of work to date. It’s a richly textured piece of work which sees him expertly display his ability to make listeners find intimacy in vast soundscapes.

Oh My God is a dense listen and though there are more immediate moments (the raucous ‘OMG Rock n Roll’ and the shapeshifting ‘Hail Mary’ are two examples), you can let this album wash over you and wallow in its most intense songs, for they are the ones that will linger longest.

This album doesn't have the blinding clarity of proper revelation but, in its febrile examination of survival and redemption, Oh My God is on the side of the angels. [May 2019, p.86]

Morby's songs move from the grandiose to hushed confessionals and by the time it ends with Dylan-like O Behold the entire journey feels like a revelation. [Jun 2019, p.115]

As with Singing Saw and City Music, a lot of time an thought has gone into ensuring Oh My God holds together. Lyrical themes are repeated, explored and teased out. [May 2019, p.22]

He doesn’t always push far enough; the album’s best when we feel the tightwire of this experience rather than when we suspect an agnostic at play. Religious language and transcendent experience (secular or sacred, if we divide them) come loaded with danger. The more Morby pushes into that space and the more he asks of the listener, the deeper the experience.

While his music has reached new heights of production and depth, his penmanship remains pedestrian.

Ultimately, despite its divine themes, the pleasures of Oh My God are pleasantly transitory, less a reckoning with the Almighty than the religious experience of casually browsing a well-stocked used record sale in a church basement.

Oh My God struggles to balance the austere with the earthly and would have been a better record with about four or five fewer songs. Still, though, it comes close to its ambitious goals of double-album greatness and the highlights represent some of Morby's most focused and wizened work yet.

Meticulous as the sound palette is throughout, favoring sustained organ chords, close-mic’d guitar strums, and the patter of hand drums, the effect starts to smudge everything together.