By Greg Seremba and Dillon Schwartz, Contributors

Greg

Ogbert The Nerd ends 2020 with an absolute explosion of sound. Lead singer Madison James strikes a beautiful, raspy balance through a truly modern punk album- “I Don’t Hate You”. Right out of the gate, “Get In the Robot'' thrusts your ears into the world of OTN...which is easily described as controlled chaos. I recognize how tough it is to feel differentiated in a saturated musical space such as pop-punk, but Madison James alone achieves it through their balanced, screaming tenor. OTN gives listeners the warm screeching comfort of a typical fast-paced Sex Pistolsesque backing rhythm combined with a shred of modernism that makes the whole album feel fresh. I expect big things from these Dirty Jerseyians (I’m from Jersey, I can use the phrase)–this feels like just the beginning for these dudes. Standout tracks include “You Like the Raiders?”, “Snail”, and “Rats! It Didn’t Work!”. 

Dillon

I Don’t Hate You, the first full release from NJ emo-punks Ogbert the Nerd, opens with a tongue-in-cheek reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion with party-track “Get in the Robot” which deals openly, albeit sarcastically with the struggles of disappointment, extreme self-doubt, and isolation.The album closes out on a heartfelt and almost tearful recounting of the funeral of a friend in “Twenty-Four”. Lyricist and singer Madison James brings us along on this journey, and it is a journey of reckoning with one’s own self-destructive tendencies. All made real and emotionally grounded through the pained rasp Madison belts over twinkly, almost midwest emo-math rock guitars. Track 3, “Buddies Lite Lime” feels like a real-time account of a realization that a final break down and breaking point is imminent, made real and unmistakable through lyrics like, “The check engine light's been on for a while now and I'm slowly burning out” and “If I go off the road again, I hope that you'll forget me. I hope you'll forget my face.” 

Ogbert the Nerd’s I Don’t Hate You, is incredible and deserves all kinds of praise for being so plain-spoken, so simple, and yet or maybe because it’s so unpretentious the complexity it deceptively and effectively contains. It gives the listener a kaleidoscope to peer through and see whatever they need to see. I’ve gone through the album over and over again the past few weeks, and I still can’t decide if it’s a break-up record, a record in remembrance of the passing of an old friend, a record both lamenting and celebrating the growth we all experience as we decide to leave parts of ourselves behind. As of writing this, I think it works best as a meditation and reckoning with how in hindsight we see our past self as someone else, someone different from who we are now, someone we need to come to terms with but ultimately someone we must leave behind. Maybe it’s all these things, maybe it’s none of them, whatever it is, whatever it means, I’m glad it exists. Because Malkmus is right, you can’t quarantine the past.