If you’re chasing the best ORB songs, you’re about to fall into one of the fuzziest, most hypnotic rabbit holes in modern psych rock. This Geelong, Australia trio — Zak Olsen, Daff Gravolin, and Jamie Harmer — climbed out of the ashes of garage revivalists The Frowning Clouds and built something heavier, weirder, and honestly a lot more addictive. I’ve spent way too many late nights with this catalog, and what keeps pulling me back is how ORB treats a riff like a living organism — it mutates, it breathes, it occasionally swallows the whole song whole. Let’s dig into the tracks that make ORB one of the most rewarding bands in the Flightless/Fuzz Club orbit.
O.R.B.
The title track from 2017’s Naturality is the closest thing ORB has to a mission statement, and at nearly nine minutes it earns every second. The song opens with a slow-build riff that Zak Olsen lets simmer before the whole band detonates into a doom-adjacent groove that never quite resolves the way you expect. What gets me every time is the mix — engineer and Castle Face co-founder Matt Jones gives the guitars this cavernous, almost submerged quality that rewards a proper set of headphones far more than laptop speakers ever could. It’s become the band’s most streamed cut for a reason, and if you want to really hear the low-end rumble in the bridge, it’s worth checking a guide like globalmusicvibe.com/compare-headphones/ before you commit to a serious listening session.
Iron Mountain
Opening ORB’s 2016 debut Birth, “Iron Mountain” is where the whole project’s sci-fi-meets-Sabbath aesthetic clicked into place. Olsen has said the title came from a random stack of storage boxes he spotted while filing for unemployment, which is such a perfectly unglamorous origin story for a song this menacing. The track was tracked with Total Control’s Mikey Young behind the desk, and you can hear his close-mic’d, analog-warm production style all over the crunch of the guitars. On a big system it hits like a slab of granite; through earbuds on a commute it still manages to feel claustrophobic in the best way.
First And Last Men
Also from Birth, this one leans further into the paranoid, dystopian mood the band was chasing on their debut. The rhythm section — Gravolin’s bass and Harmer’s drums — locks into a lurching, almost martial groove while Olsen’s vocals sit buried low in the mix, more texture than lyric. It’s a great example of how ORB uses vocals as another instrument rather than a focal point, which honestly took me a few listens to appreciate. Meanwhile, the guitar tone here is thinner and more brittle than later records, giving the whole track a haunted, lo-fi edge that fans of early Blue Öyster Cult will recognize instantly.
Electric Blanket
Closing out Birth, “Electric Blanket” trades some of the album’s dread for a woozier, more psychedelic finish. The synth flourishes that creep in around the midpoint were a small but telling hint at where ORB would head on later records — this band was never going to stay a straight doom-rock act. On headphones, the panning on the guitar leads becomes genuinely disorienting in a good way, like the mix is slowly rotating around you. It’s the kind of closer that makes you want to flip the record right back to side one.
Hazelwart
The opener on 2017’s Naturality, “Hazelwart” is where ORB’s sound started sprouting the “synthetic strangeness” that critics kept name-checking around the album’s release. There’s a kinetic, almost jittery energy to the riff work here that feels more muscular than anything on Birth, and Harmer’s drumming has this loose, propulsive swing that keeps the track from ever feeling static. In contrast to the debut’s murkier production, Naturality was tracked with noticeably more clarity, and you can hear every layer of guitar distinctly separated in the mix. It’s a genuinely great showcase for a pair of well-tuned earbuds — you catch details in the stereo field that get lost on tinny phone speakers.
A Man in the Sand
This is one of ORB’s most streamed tracks, and it’s easy to hear why — the central riff is instantly memorable, built on a descending pattern that manages to feel both heavy and hooky at once. Olsen’s vocal melody here is more confident and forward in the mix than on the debut, giving the song an almost pop-adjacent accessibility without sacrificing any of the sludge. On the other hand, the guitar solo mid-track is pure classic-rock indulgence, all bends and vibrato, which fits the band’s stated love of Diamond Head and Black Sabbath. It’s a great entry point if you’re new to the band and want a single song that captures the whole appeal.
You Are Right
Released as the lead single from Naturality, “You Are Right” is tighter and more direct than a lot of ORB’s material, clocking in well under four minutes. The arrangement leaves more space than usual, letting individual guitar lines breathe rather than piling on layers of fuzz. There’s a live-wire energy to the performance that makes total sense once you know the band was road-testing this material on tour with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard around the same period. If you’ve ever caught ORB live, you already know how much heavier these songs get once the crowd energy feeds back into the amps.
Immortal Tortoise
Another Naturality highlight, “Immortal Tortoise” stretches past the six-minute mark and uses that runtime to build one of the album’s most patient, hypnotic grooves. The song’s title fits its pacing perfectly — this thing moves slow and deliberate, but there’s real power underneath the surface. Gravolin’s basslines carry more melodic weight here than on earlier records, occasionally stepping into the foreground while the guitars pull back into atmosphere. It’s a track that genuinely benefits from a dedicated listening session rather than background noise, ideally with the lights down and the volume up.
Rainbow’s End
Closing Naturality, “Rainbow’s End” is one of the more melodically adventurous tracks in the catalog, working in tones that feel closer to prog than straight stoner rock. The interplay between Olsen and Gravolin’s guitars gets genuinely intricate toward the back half, with riffs weaving around each other rather than doubling up. I love how unresolved the ending feels — it just kind of dissolves rather than delivering a big climactic finish, which somehow makes you want to hit replay on the whole album immediately.
The Space Between the Planets
The opening track and centerpiece of 2018’s The Space Between, this song leans hardest into ORB’s cosmic, spaced-out side. Critics at the time called this the band’s most confident record to date, and this track is the clearest evidence — the production is cleaner, the arrangement more patient, and the songwriting noticeably more ambitious than the first two albums. The guitar tone drifts between crunchy riffing and shimmering, almost ambient passages, which is a neat trick for a band that started out chasing Sabbath worship. Give this one a proper listen on a home system if you can; the dynamic range between the quiet and loud sections deserves better than compressed streaming audio through cheap speakers.
Migration
ORB’s very first single, released back in October 2015 and mixed by Mikey Young, “Migration” is the sound of a young band figuring out its identity in real time. It’s rawer and scrappier than anything that came later, closer in spirit to the doom-and-metal jam sessions that originally brought Olsen, Gravolin, and Harmer together as neighbors with nothing but time on their hands. There’s a genuine charm to hearing where this band started before the songwriting got more sophisticated — you can already hear the bones of the sound that would define Birth a year later. For longtime fans, it’s a fascinating artifact; for newcomers, it’s a solid history lesson in how this project actually began.
Tailem Bend
The title track from ORB’s long-awaited 2024 comeback album — their first full-length in six years — “Tailem Bend” opens with a backwards loop and a pitch-shifted fife before dropping into a lurching riff that connects heavy blues, psych, and early metal in a way only ORB really does. Producer credit for the album’s rich, bleeding-between-instruments sound goes to engineer Dunn, and you can hear it immediately in how warm and roomy everything sounds compared to the earlier records. This is a band that clearly spent its hiatus getting better rather than stagnant, and the track’s slow-burn structure rewards patient listening.
Karma Comes
Interestingly, “Karma Comes” actually began life as a demo for Zak Olsen’s solo project Traffik Island before getting repurposed for Tailem Bend. You can hear that lighter, more melodic DNA in the finished version — it’s one of the album’s most immediately catchy moments, built on a bouncier rhythm than the record’s heavier cuts. The vocal hook sticks around long after the song ends, which is rare for a band this committed to riff-first songwriting. It’s a great example of how ORB’s side projects keep cross-pollinating the main band’s sound.
Can’t Do That
This Tailem Bend cut leans into funkier, wah-drenched territory that the band hadn’t fully explored on earlier records. The rhythm section gets a real showcase here, with Gravolin’s basswork doing a lot of the heavy lifting while the guitars pull back into more textural, rhythmic stabs. It’s proof that six years away didn’t dull ORB’s appetite for expanding their sonic palette — if anything, the gap gave them room to absorb new influences without losing the core heaviness.
Golden Arch
At over seven minutes, “Golden Arch” is one of the longest and most patient tracks on Tailem Bend, letting its riffs stretch out and mutate slowly rather than rushing toward a hook. The interludes separating tracks across the album — also credited to producer Dunn — bleed naturally into this song’s opening, making the record feel like a continuous journey rather than a collection of singles. On a good pair of over-ears, the way the guitar tone shifts from dry to reverb-soaked midway through the track is genuinely one of the album’s best production moments.
Skyclock
“Skyclock” pushes ORB’s psych tendencies to their most expansive, with a runtime that gives the arrangement room to drift into genuinely trippy territory before snapping back into a driving riff. Zak Olsen’s songwriting fingerprints are all over this one, and the melodic sensibility he’s honed through side projects clearly bleeds into the main band’s most exploratory material. Meanwhile, Harmer’s drumming holds the whole thing together, providing an anchor point that keeps the track from floating away entirely.
You Do
One of the shorter, punchier moments on Tailem Bend, “You Do” strips things back to a tight, hook-driven structure that shows off the band’s pop instincts without sacrificing any grit. It’s the kind of song that would slot perfectly into a live set as a change of pace between the sprawling epics. On the other hand, don’t mistake brevity for simplicity — there’s still plenty of texture packed into its three-and-a-half minutes.
Morph
“Morph” earns its title, shifting shape across its five-plus minutes from a straightforward riff into something noticeably stranger and more layered by the end. It’s one of the tracks on Tailem Bend that best captures the album’s overall theme of a band that’s evolved without abandoning what made them compelling in the first place. The guitar interplay between Olsen and touring member Callum Shortel, who joined for this era, adds an extra dimension that the earlier three-piece records didn’t have.
Commandment
Closing out Tailem Bend, “Commandment” slows everything down into a sludgy, hypnotic crawl that leaves the listener in exactly the right headspace to hit play again from the start. It’s a genuinely satisfying way to end an album that spent its runtime bouncing between funk, psych, and doom without ever losing focus. If you’re building a late-night listening playlist, this is the song to close it out with — check globalmusicvibe.com/category/songs/ for more closing-track picks if that’s a mood you’re chasing.
Mind Over Matter
ORB’s most recent release, dropped in August 2025 via Fuzz Club, “Mind Over Matter” finds the band pulling influence from pre-Beatles rhythm and blues and doo-wop rather than their usual Sabbath-and-Sabbath-adjacent touchstones. Olsen has described the song as an almost philosophical statement about how ideas become reality, and that reflective quality comes through in the songwriting itself — it feels looser and more exploratory than the tightly wound tracks on Tailem Bend. Notably, this single also marks the studio debut of new drummer John Zacharius, who’s brought a slightly different feel to the rhythm section. If you want to hear how this band sounds right now, in real time, this is the track to start with — and if you’re listening on the go, it’s worth comparing a few options at globalmusicvibe.com/compare-earbuds/ so the low end actually comes through.
Taken together, these twenty songs trace a genuinely compelling arc: a trio of neighbors jamming out of boredom who slowly, deliberately built one of the most distinctive heavy psych catalogs coming out of Australia. Whether you start at the paranoid dread of Birth or the funkier, more expansive Tailem Bend, there’s a real sense of a band that keeps finding new corners of its own sound to explore.
Frequently Asked Questions
What genre is ORB?
ORB plays heavy psychedelic rock with roots in late-1960s and early-1970s hard rock, drawing on influences like Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, and Diamond Head, while also incorporating doom, funk, and prog elements across their catalog.
Where is ORB from?
ORB is a three-piece band from Geelong, Victoria, Australia, formed by former members of the garage-revival band The Frowning Clouds.
What is ORB’s most popular song?
Based on streaming numbers, “O.R.B.” from the 2017 album Naturality is typically the band’s most streamed track, followed closely by “A Man in the Sand” and “Immortal Tortoise.”
How many albums has ORB released?
As of their most recent studio release, ORB has put out four full-length albums: Birth (2016), Naturality (2017), The Space Between (2018), and Tailem Bend (2024), alongside several singles and an early cassette release.
Who are the members of ORB?
The core lineup is Zak Olsen (guitar, vocals), Daff Gravolin (guitar, bass), and Jamie Harmer (drums), with guitarist Callum Shortel and drummer John Zacharius contributing to more recent recordings and touring lineups.
Is ORB signed to King Gizzard’s label?
Yes, ORB has released music through Flightless Records, the Australian label founded by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, alongside releases through Castle Face Records in the US and Fuzz Club more recently.