ugly ozo are having a bit of a moment, and, honestly, it sounds like a lot to deal with. Led by Jessica Baker, the Isle of Wight trio’s new EP ‘dive’ is stacked with big feelings and bigger hooks.
Written through breakups, burnout, falling in love and generally having her life do a full 180, Jessica doesn’t exactly hold back. ‘dive’ goes straight for it, with every thought laid out in black and white whether it’s convenient or not.
So, naturally, here she breaks it all down, track by track - because if you’re going to overshare, you may as well commit to the bit.
hi, how are you?
I wrote this track about confronting my demons and basically telling them to get fucked. At the time of writing ‘hi, how are you?’, I was definitely feeling burnt out and disillusioned with my life. It was affecting my sleep and my creativity like crazy. This track is like a conversation with everything that was weighing me down, and making the decision to not let it control me anymore. I personally love the nursery rhyme ‘la la la’s’ on it too, it’s kind of creepy.
overkill
This was potentially the easiest song to write on the EP, thanks to my ex-boyfriend. He was such a nightmare, and I stayed with him for way too long because, for some reason, I thought that was better than being on my own. Writing ‘overkill’ was a really fun way to get it out of my system after I broke up with him. It’s got these super poppy hooks over angsty guitars, and lyrically it’s really on the nose about how it went down. I personally love the line ‘I watched a movie, it’s called 10 Things I Hate About You’, because that was how I wanted to approach writing the song - by listing the things I hated about him.
