Oxford Collapse reviewed
Oxford Collapse
Remember The Night Parties
(Sub Pop)
For their third album, Oxford Collapse exploit their inner indie child to shake up a dedication to jammy psychedelia.
Nowhere near as lysergic as fellow Sub Poppers The Helio Sequence and perhaps indebted to, of all melodicists, The Dead Milkmen (see “Lady Lawyers”), there are still two sides very definitely at war on Remember The Night Parties. Of course, tension is rarely found in their sea of ringing major chords and loosely constructed harmony vocals that often sound like a Matt Pond karaoke jam. A little celebratory trumpet and chorus vocals threaten to spill into some maddening Tommy (the movie) production and the pernicious influence of Modest Mouse is a tell-tale sign versus-chorus-verse never played on the Oxfords’ porch. “Forgot To Write” is a curiously placed nod to singer-songwriterisms and closer “In Your Volcano” jumps on “End Of The World” R.E.M., but those two simple ditties aside, the eventual victor of this war will have some welcome scars.
— Kevin Keegan
Appearing: October 13th at Empty Bottle in Chicago.
Click here to download “Please Visit Your National Parks.”
