Welcome to the City of OZ

No, this has nothing to do with "The Wizard Of Oz". After all, The "Wizard Of Oz" wasn't a dystopian concept album framed with heavy brostep and a badass cover art, was it?

Justin OH's highly anticipated sophomore album is nothing short of revolutionary. Ironically, I don't mean revolutionary as in innovative, but rather revolutionary as in it quite literally has a revolution as its premise. "Welcome to the City of OZ" tracks the story of a futuristic uprising and battle, intertwined with some sort of blurry relationship discourse and plenty of notable production. Admittedly, I find Justin OH's heavier production slightly irritating, feeling weak and quite sustain-heavy, but the melodic elements he stirrs in are a lifesaver for this project. The heavier drops always have a certain sparkly twinge to them — or at the very least, some flutterier melodic sections — and the melodic tracks are pleasing, and whilst they aren't as intruiging as the mix of heavy and melodic, they still hold their ground as solid tracks. And the collaborator list Justin OH brings onto "Welcome to the City of OZ" is pretty stacked, featuring several well-respected Monstercat mainstays like Rogue and Nitro Fun. Whilst his project does lack diversity in the vocal department — with four tracks being sung by Delaney Kai, uncredited on three of them — Justin OH does a fantastic job of dealing with his star-studded collaborator list, pushing his own style to the forefront of the album whilst allowing his fellow producers to bring their own recognizable sound design flair to his storyline. It's a fantastic storyline, too, a cookiecutter dystopian concept album with plenty of cinematics, plenty of intensity, and plenty of grit, alongside a nifty little helping of emotion.

"Welcome to the City of OZ", ultimately, tries to be both a storyline and a banger tracklist. Perhaps that in itself is, although a well-meaning idea, the Achilles heel of this project. It tries to do a little too much and in not enough depth — particularly on the narrative end of the stick; I'd have loved to see this narrative expanded upon a little more in the 34 minute tracklist — and admittedly I'm not huge on Justin OH's growly and slightly dated production style. Nevertheless, it's not terrible, and that leaves "Welcome to the City of OZ" as a solid project in itself, with plenty of good ideas and themeing.

Listen on Spotify here.