Image by Boaz Walker
Ohvaur
Rebirth is a concept not unfamiliar to Ohvaur frontman Timothy Den. After all, he’s experienced “starting over” numerous times throughout his life, beginning with a childhood spent across Taiwan, South America, and Miami. He became very good at dealing with the partings and losses such instability brought, but also appreciative of the lessons they taught about survival and perseverance. One such lesson, particularly difficult, was spending 15 years as an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. He chronicled the journey – as well as his reflections on three generations of his family’s experience with immigration and war – in Ohvaur’s previous album, A Memories Chase (2013), just as he was about to enter another transformative period in life.
By the time A Memories Chase was released, Tim was a legal American, happily married, a new father, embarking on a new career, and all but leaving his musical past behind. This was yet another monumental shift for him, since he had devoted himself to nothing but music from pre-teen to adulthood. Tim had been the Assistant Editor of Lollipop magazine; founded his own website, Transform Online; fronted the Boston-based Kimone, whose work was produced by former Jawbox head J. Robbins and logged time onstage opening for the likes of Spoon and The Album Leaf; and scored numerous short films, including Bitch, which premiered at the 2007 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. Leaving the one constant that threaded together his mosaic life was daunting, but – once again – he believed in the power of rebirth.
In the 10 years that followed, this most recent rebirth brought Tim and his family a sense of stability for the first time. Slowly, he felt his passion calling him back. It, along with unexpected passings that growing older brings, had him meditating on the theme he knows all too well: the cycle of beginning and end, darkness and light, death and rebirth. Intertwined, created under obsessive attention to detail, explores these concepts and is born out of losses experienced by the band and its loved ones over the last decade. The album’s central idea is one of “endings”: confronting and understanding the many endings in life. Losing loved ones, contemplating mortality, mourning expired relationships . . . but also treasuring the precious, limited time we have in between all of these things. “We’d like to think that the album ultimately is a celebration of life before each of these ‘endings,’” Tim says.
Helping the band realize their vision were two important figures: producer Matt Wallace (Faith No More, The Replacements, Maroon 5) and Faith No More bassist / songwriter Bill Gould. Tim and Bill have been friends since the early 2000s – something Tim admits as “extremely surreal,” since Faith No More is his favorite band – and Bill had even wanted to release A Memories Chase on his label, Koolarrow. When the band ran into creative road blocks this time around, Bill brought in Matt to help steer the ship. With Matt’s generous and patient guidance – as well as Bill’s occasional observational input – the band feel that they’ve created their definitive work, sonically and artistically.
Intertwined, in the words of producer Matt Wallace, contains “defined, confident energy, cinematic melodies, and deep soul… forward thinking, dark, but also stealthily pop, and has the right balance of brutal beauty. It’s unique, deeply resonant, compelling music.” The band self-describes it as “traditional pop song structures played with muscle… like Tears For Fears backed by Faith No More, or an angry Peter Gabriel.” On the album opening title track, throbbing bass and cinematic synths give way to shimmering bursts of guitars as Tim sings of bonds (hopefully) transcending death. “Altered Endings” is a dreamy tale of unfulfilled destinies; “Every Minute Here” a driving, futuristic ode to optimism; and “Blood in the Smoke” a tragic true story of a family’s loss of their son, set to an explosive, twisting climax.
Elsewhere, the quieter moments of “I Won’t Know How to Leave You When You’re Gone” and “Long Distance Call” grapple with grief, while “Time Will Not Remember Us” packs punches into an otherwise shoegazing haze. The album closes with “Europe By Way of Slumber,” a chamber pop, Tom Waits-ish lullaby Tim wrote over 20 years ago, encapsulating and summarizing the album’s overall messages.
Intertwined took many years and personal twists-and-turns to manifest, but its songs could not have been written without that history as its catalyst. With its release, it’s as if the band is going through their own rebirth: a new entity, led by a mission statement album, into yet another new beginning.