Obnox "Wiglet" LP
Side A: Look To The Sun, If You Wanna Know The Truth, See me, Burning Sage w/Roseanna, Infinite Trash, Jailhouse Blues
Side B: Symbol Crash, Pobability, Baby When I Roll Up, It's So Hard To Break A Habit, Dark Man Ex, Cleveland Troublemake
“Stripped of diamonds and gold, bought and sold/I sit on the floor and see the whole globe/Cop warmth and a piece of change/Loom large in a nigga’s brain” - “Look Into The Sun”
The people say they want the truth. Let’s take them at their word: The People want the Truth. Lamont ‘Bim’ Thomas is the god(damn/’s honest) Truth. We all know the truth isn’t always pretty, and rarely is it fun -- but Thomas makes it sound like the best party you’ve ever been to which you’ve ever been invited. And make no mistake -- everyone is invited. Obnox is soul music for the bruised and battered; feel-good tunes for the righteously pissed-off masses; and a sonic salve for the neglected and ignored.
Wiglet -- Thomas’s third full-length of 2015 -- is part two of Ever/Never’s double-fisted Obnox-ious assault on your eardrums (following current triumph Know America). If possible, Wiglet is Thomas’ most wigged-out offering yet. Condensed into a solid
half-hour of fuzz, grease, sweat and fury, Wiglet is another entry into Thomas now-patented, and near-effortless, blend of punk (including garage, post and hardcore), soul and hip-hop -- all with an ear worthy of a warped late ‘60s studio engineer. I could spend the rest of this page using further (well-earned) hyperbole
extolling the various and numerous virtues of Obnox’s omnivorous approach to music, but instead I will regale you with a different angle that also speaks to Thomas’ strengths: his words.
“LA Blues, Saturday night/Trying to do everything right/Failing miserably/What if I was white/Can’t think like that/Plague state of mind” - “See Me”
The fact that the thunderous “See Me,” which has drop-dead gorgeous vocal melodies, is a strange sort of love song, does not render the above opening lyrics as any less truthful. It may be easy for Thomas’ fans to detach themselves from the very real threat
that he faces on a daily basis, but he’s not here to help you forget. He is here for the undervalued and underrepresented. But Bim isn’t intent on making you feel bad, quite the opposite. Acknowledging that the world outside of the rock n’ roll bubble is
a fucked-up maze of paranoia and danger would be to live in a false utopia. Obnox is designed to build a new reality for Thomas and all his like-minded allies. It is the reason for Obnox’s strikingly original approach to underground music. Thomas
devours everything in his path and spits it back out at you in perfect little nuggets of honesty coupled with savage intensity. And like any good MC, Thomas is a poet when it comes to the diss:
“I was in the room with you/You called me a jigaboo/You squirted across the room/Our relationship is doomed” - “Infinite Trash”
Thomas demonstrates his no-bullshit policy, unafraid to use the language that makes us blush, makes us furious. This is where Obnox excels -- blunt reality smoked and exhaled as truth.
“Baby when I roll up/You bout to get told off/Right after the blunt cough/Tell you straight to fuck off/Played me like I was soft/Didn’t wanna clip your wings off/Should’ve dogged you, should’ve dissed you/Don’t care what you’ve been through” - “Baby When I Roll Up”
Here, Thomas is showing you mercy. It’s been a hell of a ride for Obnox in 2015. Wiglet is the final course of one hell of a meal. And the closing cover of Chrissy Zebby Tembo’s Afro-fuzz banger “Troublemaker” is the icing on the cake.
