I’m writing this from Brighton; from the soggy dark southern coast just hours away from the shortest day. It’s dark and cold, so cold that it feels like you could bite serrated frozen chunks of air out of the atmosphere. The deep British winter is just setting in.
I’m listening to a song called Metaphorical Ohio and thinking “god, the real Ohio feels a long way away”, and I don’t even have a mental picture of it. In England we make jokes about passport-less trans-Atlantic cousins but there is a hole in my brain where a picture of Ohio should be, so I am left with this…
“I love you the way you are / You met me in the strangest place / It was Metaphorical Ohio”.
Little Oso hail not from Ohio but from Portland, Maine (not the Portland I have a working mental picture of) and their hazy, lovely, yearning sound feels summoned from misty shorelines and suburban backyards. Originally a duo from New Jersey, the band grew into a full-fledged quartet in 2022 and have a lovely sound which – let’s not shy away from it – is rather like Canada’s excellent Alvvays.
Little Oso have released three EPs at a measured pace and now find themselves in the pregnant moment before their debut album arrives in January 2025. Judging by Metaphorical Ohio (which is streaming everywhere courtesy of the reliably fantastic label Safe Suburban Homes), it’s going to be a great LP.
And boy, Metaphorical Ohio sounds like a lovely place in the summertime. Without an accurate mental picture (I’ll look it up, but later) it’s hard to know just how metaphorical these images are; whether Little Oso’s Ohio is a dreamlike, liminal space disconnected from reality or a nostalgic parade of genuine vignettes. But either way the imagery is hot and evocative, the song a vivid sensory summoning of “summer nights … when the dirt clings to skin”. How far away those feel.
The tune, too, is great, Jeannette Berman’s warm, high vocal surfing on a tide of guitar jangles and synth motifs while the drums and bass lock into an ecstatically soulful stomp. The chorus is a delight – a dreamy invitation to “meet me in Metaphorical Ohio and take me in”. So tuneful, so lovely.
Wonderfully, the song hinges in the middle, fading back to nothing before coasting home on a delirious, chiming refrain.
Little Oso do something brilliant with this song – that combination of vivid imagery and woozy confusion creates a wonderful mood. Metaphorical Ohio seems to be a place where the past and present blur, where the seemingly mundane (beer in a cemetery, swimming in a neighbour’s pool) becomes significant in a disconnected world which feels increasingly transient.
“Went on a run and returned a year later”, Berman sings, “The rooftop garden swamp is something to behold”.
I’m much taken with this song and its abstract but oddly tangible imagery. Lingering feelings illuminated by the faint afterglow of summer.
Written by Jonathan Shipley
