OBLIVIATE Gas Station Gambler
Tucked away in Northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville to be exact, lies a five piece band that goes by the name of OBLIVIATE.
The genre? Self described as Ozark Mountain Hardcore.
Released on August 21 2026, Gas Station Gambler is a five-track EP, clocking in just shy of 14 minutes. Recorded at Odd Frequency Studio and mixed by Jeffrey Feast, the entire EP is a lesson in how to make fourteen minutes feel a hell of a lot longer, and I mean that as a compliment.
It didn’t take the entire 14 minutes to figure out that OBLIVIATE isn’t particularly interested in reinventing the wheel. They’re more interested in seeing how fast they can throw it downhill.
OBLIVIATE Socials
Order the Gas Station Gambler vinyl here
I’ve spent the better part of the last year hearing OBLIVIATE tear through these five songs in various rooms around Northwest Arkansas, which makes approaching this EP a little different than coming to it cold. Whatever familiarity I have with the band doesn’t change what is, or isn’t, on the record.
When Gas Station Gambler finally showed up on August 21, I already knew the songs. What I didn’t know was how they’d survive outside of the rooms they were built for.
Listening to songs on a record when you’ve spent the better part of a year shouting them in the middle of sweaty, chaotic rooms is a gamble. Some songs belong to the room they were born in. Others manage to escape the confines you’ve known, haunting you in other spaces you thought were safe.
“The Snake”
The second the opening track starts, it’s almost an “oh shit” moment. A winding guitar riff snakes its way through the opening second before vocalist Jasmine Myrick starts screaming. One second. That’s all you get. No time to get your bearings straight. No warning. You’re already knee deep and drowning.
The Snake doesn’t fuck around with introductions or build-ups.
I’ve heard this song live more times than I can count, and I knew exactly what was coming when I pressed play. Somehow, knowing what’s coming doesn’t make the impact any softer. If anything, it makes the swing come faster. There’s something almost comforting about knowing where the punch is coming from, only to realize you’re still not ready for it.
That’s the thing about The Snake, It doesn’t need the room to make you feel like you’re in one. The sweat, the bodies, the noise, the split-second before everything goes completely off the rails, somehow made the trip on to the recording.
The Snake video
“Embrace the Violence“
Immediately, the drums settle into a slow groove. The reverb hanging off them makes it feel like you’re standing in an empty music hall, listening to a drum soundcheck before anyone else has arrived.
Then the guitars come in like machine guns, the bass thumps with precision, Jasmine gutturally bellowing the title “Embrace the Violence.”
From there, it’s hard not to let your head sway and body move with every kick drum and snare snap from drummer Alex Vasquez.
There’s even a guitar solo towering over the rhythm guitar, though calling it a “solo” feels generous. Jasmine is still tearing through the vocals while the lead guitar spirals around her, adding another layer of chaos without ever taking the spotlight away from her.
The entire track flows with everyone chaotically bouncing off one another. Each part feeding into the next yet somehow it still feels like a controlled burn deep within the Ozark hills.
“All for Nothing”
Like the previous track, Embrace the Violence, All for Nothing starts off with a tasty drum beat that gives you a stank face. You know the one.
Your face scrunches up. Your eyebrows furrow. Your head starts moving before you’ve even realized you’re doing it.
The guitar riffs ring, the bass rumbles, the beat continues.
Then comes the short breakdown where the guitar lets everyone in the room know what time it is.
It’s time for mayhem. It’s time for chaos.
It is time to fucking move…
And that’s what makes All for Nothing so god damn good. It’s not just a song you listen to. It’s a song that seems to know exactly what it’s supposed to do to a room.
It’s energy. It’s motion. It is the fucking room.
“Body, Mind & Soul”
Body, Mind & Soul is the shortest track on the album, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the weakest.
In fact, its brevity might be exactly what makes it work. There’s something refreshing about a song that knows exactly what it wants to say and doesn’t hang around long enough to repeat itself. It gets in, does its damage, and gets the fuck out.
After the sheer physicality of All for Nothing, Body, Mind & Soul feels almost like a reset. Not necessarily a breather because OBLIVIATE doesn’t seem particularly interested in giving us one, but a change in pace.
One to 2-step to. One to c-walk to.
The song doesn’t need to be the biggest or loudest moment on the album to leave an impression. Sometimes, less is more.
And sometimes, less means that you hit harder to make the time count.
“Burn Up Blow Down”
The album ends just like it began, immediately hammering the listener with intensity. Burn Up Blow Down doesn’t ease you into the final stretch or offer some grand, contemplative farewell. It kicks the fucking door in.
After everything OBLIVIATE has thrown at you over the course of the last twelve minutes, there’s something fitting about ending this way.
No comedown. No victory lap. Just one last blast of aggression before the record finally lets you go. One line from the song feels particularly fitting, “If you’re gonna blow it up to burn it all down.”
And fucking burn it down they did.
It’s a hell of a way to end an EP.
Now that we’ve made it through the fourteen-minute assault that is OBLIVIATE‘s Gas Station Gambler EP, let’s talk about why the damn thing hits as hard as it does.
Because this record sounds fucking huge.
Odd Frequency Studio and Jeffrey Feast did an absolute bang up job on this EP.
The guitars are so crisp, you hear every note. The bass is thunderous without being muddy. The drums punch so clear you feel every beat of the kick deep in your chest. The vocals cut through everything without losing any of their grit or aggression.
That’s where the production really earns its keep. OBLIVIATE sounds chaotic without sounding messy. There is a difference.
Chaos is the feeling. Messy is when you can’t hear what the fuck is going on.
Here, you can hear it. You can hear the live show coming through your speakers.
And that’s important, because this album isn’t supposed to be polite. It’s supposed to hit you in the chest like you just got crowd killed by the kid with no shirt on.
Enjoy this video of a live OBLIVIATE show I recorded a while back.
