This is some quirky shit. I don't even know what to call it. It's just weird sort of raw indie rock with some humorous qualities to it. It's pretty dirty, and definitely bizarre. It's not really my thing, though I do like portions of it. I guess I just don't know what they're going for. Take for instance the underwater sounding vocals of "(Havin' a Blast In) Co-op City"... I mean, what's up with that? And the keyboards in "Sex Face" have got to go... in fact, aside from the godly basslines, the entire track needs to go, if I must be so blunt. It's just a mess of obnoxious noise and sloppy keyboards, but damn those bass runs are just awesome! But really, for the most part this stuff is just too obnoxious and chaotic for me to get into. If they took themselves more seriously or were a bit more cohesive I could see myself getting into it. On rare occasion when the lock into a solid rhythm and a little bit of melody creeps in it sort of has an early Dischord meets early Jawbreaker vibe going on, but sadly these moments are all too quickly disrupted. The recording is really dry and totally rugged. There's not a lot of low-end at all, and the bass actually drives the songs. It's just that the bass tone is really plunky and well defined as opposed to being heavy on the lower tones. The drums have an 80's type of sound to them, they're totally natural and not too deep. The guitars are choppy and jangly, which suits them fine because they're played rather loosely as well. The vocals probably tend to have the best sound overall. The CD-R, which is hand-painted with some random orange brush strokes on the top, comes in a simple screenprinted sleeve (I think... some sort of quality printing method was definitely used) with some text stamped on the inside. There's one small insert that has a band photo on it as well. No lyrics are included, though. The back of the sleeve is numbered out of 300 copies. I like the way the printing is sort of faded and bleeds into the paper. Very nice. Basic yet effective. Unfortunately the music just isn't doing it for me. I need more to follow... and I know that they could do that if they wanted to, but clearly they don't. Bizarre... if only there were more tracks like "Grasses of Anne". You can't win 'em all.
[self-released]
Running time - 19:36, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Grasses of Anne]
Oxford Collapse - http://www.oxfordcollapse.com
