Outer Battery (2025)
The legacy of Rick Froberg is immense and wide ranging. His legacy in music is also very often tied to the legacy of John Reis, due to their collaborations in Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes. However, when Hot Snakes stopped playing a few years after Audit In Progress came out I personally wondered if we'd see a fourth collaboration or if Rick would step back from music a bit like when Drive Like Jehu stopped playing. The answer was neither as he started playing in a new band, Obits.
I vividly remember the fervor of the band's formation coming to light on ye olde Swami message board. A bootleg of their first show was bandied about and everyone seemed pretty stoked on the prospect of getting some records. The first time I saw Obits was at a place called Santos Party House in December of 2008. They played with The Night Marchers and at the time their debut full length hadn't been released yet. Discogs is telling me that their first 7" was out at that point, but truthfully I don't remember it that way. I'm probably wrong though, who am I to argue with Discogs. What I can tell you is that Obits ripped through a set of killer songs and you know a band is hot when they blow you away with a bunch of stuff that you don't already know.
Three full lengths were released in the following years, all of which I loved. Interspersed were a bunch of singles and L.E.G.I.T. compiles them all for easy listening (finally getting to the point in the third paragraph). This comp was originally released on CD in 2014, but I'm excited to have it on vinyl. I love these songs and as much as I adore collecting 7"s, it can be something of a fussy experience to sit around trying to listen to a bunch of them all at once. One flip of a record vs. putting on and flipping five different 7"s is a more relaxing experience.
And these songs are not just leftovers. They are killer, killer songs. To this day my absolute favorite Obits song is "Put It In Writing," the B side to their first 7" "One Cross Apiece." And they lead off this LP with that one-two punch that sets the stage for the excellence that follows. This is an essential pickup if you like Obits. Sure, the last four live tracks aren't as exciting as to me as the studio recordings, but I've never really been a live album sort of guy (with very few exceptions). It bums me out thinking about how we don't have years of future Froberg masterpieces in front of us, but I am comforted by all of the ones he provided us in the past.
Obits - L.E.G.I.T.:
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