Vocalist/guitarist Spencer Peppet, drummer Mic Adams, and violinist Andrea Gutmann Fuentes came up together in the same Cincinnati scene. Adams and Gutmann Fuentes had a history playing together pre-Ophelias, and her joining the band came via a cold-call from Peppet when they were teenagers. Adams’ drumming talent landed him in more than a few bands across the city, including Peppet’s before they graduated high school. “I’m very grateful he said yes to that,” she says. “I didn’t realize we were friends for that long before the band started,” Adams adds. “The Ophelias kind of… made us friends,” Peppet replies, to which Adams calls it a classic “I know all of the people I know through music” situation.
On “Ribbon“, the Ophelias are full of joy. A song like “Black Ribbon” pairs Andrea Gutmann Fuentes’ chilling violin with a grieving, sluggish chord progression from Spencer Peppet—both of which build upwards into this chunky, synthy, full-band explosion of noise, while Peppet vocalizes through the chaos in the eye of the storm, examining the genesis of a new queer relationship. “Some kind of desire that I cannot categorize,” she sings. “You’re a Springsteen song, dark sky in overdrive into the warm night.” On “Soft and Tame,” write a heartbreaking homecoming lament. “Giving up love in the South of Ohio, I hate it here, in the in-between,” Peppet sings out. “I wanna feel safe, I wanna feel seen. The curve of the hills when the sun is gone, a knot in my throat, another fucking song.”
Fuentes’ violin rips through the noise of the track with a paradoxical, piercing delicacy that renders “Soft and Tame” into a brand new register of beauty. “Ribbon” flourishes like a full-length, setting its own in-betweens ablaze with emotionality arriving mercilessly from every angle. Few bands cater to my tastes so distinctly—Ohio representation, Springsteen mentioned, queer as a three-dollar bill—but the Ophelias are not like other bands. Hearing “Dust” live in a near-empty Columbus venue in April was one of my most cathartic nights of the year.
released April 12th, 2024
Spencer Peppet – guitar, vocals, piano, synth, songwriting
Andrea Gutmann Fuentes – violin
Mic Adams – drums, percussion, gang vocals
Jo Shaffer – bass, gang vocals
Calvin Lauber – additional guitar
The Fat Angel Sings 