Search - O-Positive :: Only Breathing

The best work of an unsung Boston alternative band

woburnmusicfan | Woburn, MA United States | 10/08/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"O Positive was a Boston alternative-rock band of the late 80s-early 90s, memorable mostly for Dave Herlihy's great rock voice and Alan Petitti's guitar. This CD contains the band's first two EPs, which were more overtly melodic and just flat-out catchier than anything the band did later. The CD includes the classics "With You" and "Talk About Love" along with other memorable songs like "Pictures" and "Up, Up, Up". "With You" combines lead guitar, drum, and rhythm guitar parts that SEEM like they should be at odds with one another, but somehow blend into a fantastic song, matched to extreme fear-of-commitment lyrics: "Put a rope around my neck/Give me a label, get me sick/I could love you, it's a suicide to choose". I don't think they sound much like REM, as a previous reviewer suggested, except that the opening guitar on "In the Light" sounds a little like "Man in the Moon". I have the later "Toyboat Toyboat Toyboat" album, and a posthumous live CD (I think there's another album I'm missing), but this CD is easily the best of the bunch.(1=poor 2=mediocre 3=pretty good 4=very good 5=phenomenal)"

O+: Best Local Boston Band... Ever

Bone | Oakland, CA | 03/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love these guys - I went to something like a million shows in the early nineties. A friend and I followed them around and saw them whenever we could. Herlihy has an amazing voice and a fantastic, supercharismatic presence. Even in 2005, this album is one of my alltime faves.



Man, I miss these guys. I hope Dave is performing somewhere - he was one of the best frontmen I've ever seen. Why aren't there bands like this anymore? Buy this album if you don't have it. It's a treasure."

Boston's overlooked R.E.M.

James Simon | New York, NY USA | 09/18/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Just as the music scene had piqued in the late 80's in Boston, along came O Positive with their two EP's, Only Breathing & Cloud Factory. Going with ecletic verses and sparce guitar driven rock, the comparrisons to early REM are unavoidable. And yet they took REM's sound and ran with it to create the highly catchy EP's compiled here. Unfortunetely, Epic Records picked them up and destroyed them with an over-produced bland album called "Toyboat". On the plus side, the Canadian label Link found these EP's and made them into one great listening experience."