Like their fabled namesake, the members of Oblio are each just a bit out of place. Travis Vance, who was born to a family of doctors and scientists, is a philosophical bassist, a kung fu addict, a hip hop fan with an Afro. Terry Price, the self-taught guitarist who loves his relatives’ hymns, stomps his feet and thrashes his hair onstage, but doesn‘t have a guitar of his own. And despite Mikie Martel’s knack for improvisation, he has a scholarly concentration whether writing, or playing horns or keyboards, adroitly blending the art and science of musicianship. Ben Dumas is an easy, swaggering charmer with an air of Southern aristocracy, but he becomes fierce and focused at the helm of his drums, approaching them with equal parts love and violence.

One year after releasing their “Seeds EP”, this foursome brings us their newest effort, “Create The Night Pt. I”. Seven tracks of their newest musical creations.

“Create The Night Pt. I” takes the listener on a music journey. The band’s style goes from a light swim to diving right into the genre pools of Indie, Rock, Pop, and Folk. The pace of the album is very mellow so it would be nice to listen to after dinner or when you’re just relaxing after a hard day of work. When listening closely, I can hear elements of Jack Johnson, The Wallflowers, Neil Young, and even James Blunt. Three of the four band members do vocals on many of the tracks. This has been done before in music several times and the final product always seems to sound overdone/washed out. However, this is not the case with Oblio. They don’t try to overdue the vocals in order to make the music really extravagant. It just sounds natural and pleasant on the ears. My favourite track is ‘She-Devil’. This song is most upbeat on the album and something I would definitely recommend for radio airplay. The song has that ‘something more’ and really grabs my attention. I particularly dislike the fourth track, ‘Marlborough Blues’. To me it sounds like a bad interlude song with vocals thrown on top of it, therefore not as appealing as the rest of the album.

Though I prefer music with a little bit more energy and ‘unf’, Oblio’s “Create The Night Pt.I” is still a very intriguing album. The music is easy to listen to and pleasing to the senses. The band plans on releasing “Create The Night Pt II” in the spring of 2007, so be sure to keep an eye out for it. I can’t wait to hear more from these talented musicians. Theirs is a life on the road; a life of forward movement, changing horizons, and anticipation as the lights go up, and the day fades into night.