Les Os - By The Unicorns
TITLE: Les Os
ARTIST: The Unicorns
GENRE: Indie Rock
MOOD: Upbeat / Bitter
SIMILAR TO:
The Unicorns, a Canadian indie rock band long since disbanded (but still worth the listen!), produced their debut EP Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? in 2003, just a year before they announced their split. Though The Unicorns, which formed in 2000, had a brief life as a band, they filled every moment with a hectic energy and tension that can be traced in their music. In 2003, The Unicorns released two albums in a single year, embarked on an intense and incessant tour, exploded into popularity, and soon realized they'd had enough.
“Les Os”, the penultimate track on Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?, is French for “The Bones” as well as a play on the translation “The O’s”, in reference to the scattered “oh oh oh”’s throughout the track. “Les Os” is about digging up past secrets in a relationship, exhuming things that should probably stay in the dirt, and then incessantly ruminating over them. “Les Os” is detailed with surprisingly lighthearted melodies, considering the heavy feature of death throughout the song. It culminates in the weight of questions asked in wails -- “Is this love of ours a lie?/Is it killing me alive?”
Mastered with a jittery, electric energy, “Les Os” is a versatile track you can dance to, cry to, and/or bite your nails to. Amid a tangible anxiety in the frantic guitar riffs, the track gives way to a soothing melodic break deeper into the song.