So, OZLO’s self-titled EP is tagged “math rock” on their Bandcamp page which made me hesitant to want to listen to it at first. I consider myself a “music fan,” but my actual dabbling in music has always been amateurish at best. I’m completely tone-deaf and, due to growing up in a relatively music free household where any albums we had usually came with the cars my parents bought, any music that doesn’t immediately sound mid-80s Beach Boys makes my face screw up like I’m smelling turds. So when I come across any band of apparent music whizzes, my initial reaction is that of jealousy. My hands can barely form a barre chord and these Yngwie Malmsteens are running through scales the way I run through toilet paper!? Harrumph! Secondly, because, again, I sometimes don’t understand why music kept being made after the song “Kokomo” was released, your more technical bands never appealed to me. Rush? Engh. Dream Theater? More like ‘Snooze Theater!’ (hi five).

But these are all my problems, not Boston’s OZLO’s. Yes, they are musical geniuses that often use wild time signatures and chord patterns that can probably qualify as a doctoral thesis at Oberlin. BUT, they also understand pop harmony. And lo-fi punk. And how to write an actual song. Things your normal run of the mill math rock bands conveniently ignore while they try and dazzle you with their “sick phrasing.” “Headaches” starts like some psych-prog opus but then instantly turns into MUFFS-esque pop punk before going right back to prog-riffery. “Evan” builds on a monster breakdown riff with a drumbeat that clearly takes more than four limbs to play. “Call the Police” even gets dancey in the middle! OZLO’s technical abilities should be applauded, but their foresight to weld those abilities to groove-based pop rock so that Mike Love loving dummies like myself can get into it, is the masterstroke that sets them above the rest.