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If you've picked up the recent Massive Attack Best Of... then you will already be familiar with one of the members of oom.: vocalist Debbie Clare worked on Joy Luck Club, which found its way onto the compilation.
It will come as little surprise, then, to discover that Clare's own band oom are fantastic. Poison is a wonderful mix of electronica and rock. It opens with an electronic backing that clicks and broods away like a sulking drinks machine while Clare drips a broken smoky vocal over its circuitry. Moody doesn't quite cover it. As the song develops jagged guitars jostle their way to the front of the mix having originally been content to add the merest hint of colour. As the song breaks away from its moorings it sucks you in, thrills you, drenching you in danger and a whispered promise of fatal sex.
Debbie Clare's voice is unsurprisingly the key element to all of the songs here; it is fragile, knowing and vulnerable. There are elements of Donna Summer, Dusty Springfield and the off-kilter Katie Jane Garside present in her vocals, and they all combine to create something utterly enchanting. On this evidence it's possible that they could easily fill the gap left by Portishead.
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