I mean it was really KM and JM's project, not MP and JM's, so I really don't mind what came out of it. That said, Blood is a great album on the surface but I feel it gets stale really quickly.
What OSI's got going now is much better than anything they were planning on making in the first place.
I'm stuck in the middle; I genuinely think that both of these statements are spot on. The first time I heard Blood I was blown away, it is an amazingly refined album with a certain depth that I couldn't grasp for a while; it was a grower, to be certain. For instance, Microburst Alert, one of my favorite tracks off the album, I detested at first simply because it bombarded me with so many awkward sounds at once coupled with the radio transmission playing throughout. But a few listens later and it is so gawdamn funky, I love it. With that said, out of the countless times I've listened to that album, I'm beginning to agree with that 'stale' statement. I wouldn't use that word, but it's lost a good amount of its flair.
On the other hand, even though I consider their second album to be their best soon followed by their S/T, they aren't as...'big'(? for lack of a better word) as Blood. There's something in Blood that was missing on the other two. A sort of ferocity; I could almost feel that somehow they found a way to rekindle their love for music and went into Blood head on and ready to kick ass. It's so powerful. THEN I end up going back to the S/T and find that it's much deeper than Blood, after a while those eccentricities of Blood kind of evened out for me and I was hoping to hear something a little less straightforward and a bit more original and zany. Tracks like Bigger Wave; Our Town; Hello, Helicopter!; ShutDOWN; Dirt From A Holy Place..etc. etc., I hate to use the word but basically more 'progressive' than what Blood has to offer.
I dunno, I'm beginning to ramble with no point. I'm very excited for the new album and I'm sure anything that comes out of it I will love but I'm merely hoping that they don't forget their humble beginnings and attempt to move forward and expand whilst throwing in a bit of that old-school charm into it. Kicking is still ringing in my ears and it's such a simple song. Those simplicities shouldn't be lost when moving forward and attempting to evolve the band.