Ohtis come from Los Angeles but sound like they grew up in a town where nothing happens and everyone leaves. Sam Clancy and Adam Pressley write songs about small failures and the people who live with them, set to slack-tuned guitars and arrangements that sag in the middle on purpose. Virgos are Honest is their third album and it does not try to win you over quickly. The tempos drag, the vocals stay flat and conversational, and the production leaves space around everything so you hear the room as much as the instruments.
Twenty tracks is a lot, and some of these could have been cut. But the best ones, 'History of Tears', 'Blankets on the Blinds', 'Taxi Driver', have the worn-in feel of songs you have known for years even if you are hearing them for the first time. Pedal steel, brushed drums, piano that sounds like it was recorded in a different room. It sits somewhere between early Wilco and the more defeated end of indie rock, the kind of record that rewards putting it on and doing nothing else.
This is for people who think most alt-country is too polished and most indie rock talks too much. It takes its time and it does not care if you lose interest halfway through.
