As a State News writer, I'm only allowed to use exclamation points sparingly. I'm not sure exactly why, but they're not a big part of what we refer to as "State News style."
Unfortunately, this means I have to take alternate measures for displaying my interest/distaste for the current trend of bands' names utilizing the most exhilarating pieces of punctuation.
It may look dumb, but you have to admit that other punctuation marks would look even dumber. I'd want to listen to Panic? At the Disco even less than I want to listen to Panic! At the Disco.
For the most part, an exclamation point acts as a hint at what you're getting with a band. You can tell The Go! Team, and Thunderbirds Are Now! will sound overcaffeinated because their exclamatory nomenclatures read less like band names and more like commands.
But Oh No! Oh My! is a shout of a different color. The first half implies some sort of unexpected disaster ("Oh no! I'm out of Pop-Tarts!") while the second takes the shock of that disaster and cranks it up a few notches ("Oh my! My roommate used the Pop-Tarts to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia!").
That's why Oh No! Oh My! is the perfect branding for both the band and its debut album. The listener is lured in by whimsical bedroom pop ditties with titles like "Walk In The Park," only to find their lilting melodies betrayed (Oh no!) by darker lyrics about drive-by shootings, accidental pregnancies and the self-esteem issues of the obese (Though, to be fair, the song dealing with said self-esteem issues is called "Jane Is Fat").
The exclamation points also indicate a youthful naiveté; like most good indie popsters, the band's main source of inspiration seems to be a refusal to grow up. The lyrics to "I Have No Sister" sound like they were written by a Boy Scout on a quest to earn a merit badge for quirkiness.
"You look like Audrey Hepburn when you get all dressed up," vocalist Greg Barkley croons through his nasal passages. "I have seen all your movies 'cuz Audrey's a stone fox."
"Oh No! Oh My!" is bedroom pop actually recorded in bedrooms. I envision Barkley and his cohorts, Daniel Hoxmeier and Joel Calvin, perched on the edge of a bed in a sparse apartment, kind of like Billie Joe Armstrong in the video for Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." But instead of coughing up the official high school graduation song of the next 20 years, they're spinning out waltzes about high school shyness and chastity — "Lisa, Make Love! (It's Okay!)."
Though the bedroom is occasionally furnished with a dance floor — check those beats on "I Love You All the Time" — Oh No! Oh My! seems like it might be limited by its friendly confines. Both "Reeks and Seeks" and "Women Are Born In Love" begin promisingly, but never move beyond repetitious chants. They build up, but they never go anywhere.
The band would do better to focus on songs like "Lisa, Make Love! (It's Okay!)," which retain intimacy while seeking a more adventurous sonic palette. Those exclamation points can only take them so far.
