Oproer- Complete Artist Review
Complete Artist Review after listening to every record. Here you will find an overview of Oproer as well as my personal rankings of their records and EPs. Also, you will find my Top 10 Songs and link to my Essentials Playlist in this pages 1st photo.
Click on other photos for surprise Easter Egg links!
Oproer
From the very first moments you hear them, you get the sense Oproer aren’t trying to impress anyone. They’re trying to awaken something in you. It’s right there in the name—Oproer, Dutch for rebellion, uprising, revolt. But this isn’t rage for rage’s sake. This is artful revolt. The kind that doesn’t yell its message—it hypnotizes you into hearing it.
Hailing from Belgium, Oproer burst into the scene like they were shot from a cannon hidden in the back of a nightclub. Their music doesn’t just borrow from genres—it bends them, fractures them, and fuses the pieces into something that feels wild, theatrical, and weirdly precise. You hear funk. You hear synth-punk. You hear jazz, ska, psych, art rock. It’s as if Talking Heads, The Cat Empire, Jungle, LCD Soundsytem and Nine Inch Nails went into a back alley and built five androids that’d eventually become Oproer.
Before their full-length debut, Oproer made a statement of intent with their Closed Session EP—recorded live in one take, with no pre-recorded tracks, just raw energy and airtight chemistry. The video of the session is online, and it plays like a band daring you to underestimate them.
Mad Affair opens the EP like a descent into a manic funhouse. It’s jagged, haunted, and maniacally theatrical—a direct descendant of Talking Heads, sure, but filtered through a lens that’s all Oproer. Status Quo flips the script, bringing in horn stabs, jazz-funk grooves, and ska-inflected bounce. It’s dizzying how tight they are live—especially when the synth solo hits and it rips the roof off right off the room they’re in.
Get Get Get plays with Middle Eastern melodic phrasing and rhythmic loops, giving the whole thing this snake-charmer pulse—rebellious megaphone delivery and all. And then So Fly arrives, and it’s like the heavens open up. Harmonies that make your heart ache. A climax that builds like an emotional freight train. It’s spiritual. Unshakable. There Was Never Love closes the EP in their favorite way—completely unconventional. Built from what? Who knows. A groove? A dream? Whatever it is, it works. The EP didn’t just show potential. It showed identity. It said, This is who we are. Now follow us, or get out of the way.
With We’re All Late Tonight, Oproer took all that chaotic electricity and channeled it into a debut record that’s somehow even more nuanced, textured, and conceptually sharp. It’s a full-album experience—one that doesn’t concern itself with structure as much as it does with feel. It’s got tension like a coiled spring. It builds, delays release, twists back on itself, and still finds a way to explode when it counts.
It’s hard to even pick a standout, because everything serves the atmosphere. If You Change Your Mind is an instant classic—infectious, emotional, unpredictable. Money proves they know how to write a commercial hit without compromising their weirdness. The City Burns ends things on a crushing, piano-led ballad that feels like it was extracted straight from the core of the bands heart.
Their vocal delivery is unlike anyone else working today—sometimes barked like a call to arms, sometimes murmured like a secret, sometimes stretched into falsetto with such tension. Lyrically and sonically, they operate like outsiders who figured out how to use the system against itself. It’s modern, yes. But it’s also timeless in that it speaks to something human. Disruption. Discomfort. Euphoria. Confusion. Hope. All at once.
Genre-wise? Forget it. They’re a little synth-punk, a little art rock, a little protest party. A little late-night European jazz club if it got hijacked by new wave ninjas. Uh-oh!
But more than anything, Oproer is intention and atmosphere turned into sound. They don’t let you get too comfortable. Every song feels like it’s building toward something—not just musically, but existentially.
And still, they’re catchy. They’re melodic. They’re fun as hell. It’s not rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It’s rebellion because it’s the most honest form of expression they’ve got.
Album Rankings
We’re All Late Tonight (2023)
Closed Session EP (2021)
Top 10 Songs
(In No pARTICULAR oRDER)
If You Change Your Mind (We’re All Late Tonight)
No Not Me, Sir (We’re All Late Tonight)
Let Go (We’re All Late Tonight)
Money (We’re All Late Tonight)
Dreamer On a Leash (Single)
Mad Affair (Closed Session EP)
Status Quo (Closed Session EP)
Get Get Get (Closed Session EP)
So Fly (Closed Session EP)
Cold Feet (Single)
There’s a strange kind of magic in watching a band know exactly who they are this early in the game. Oproer isn’t testing the waters. They’ve already jumped in and built a raft out of broken synths. If their Live EP was the warning flare, and We’re All Late Tonight was the manifesto, then what’s next? It could be anything. That’s the most exciting part. They’ve made it clear they’re not afraid to shapeshift. To tear it all down. To rebuild from ashes. This isn’t a trend. This is a movement. Get on board and enjoy the ride.