Hydra Head/Vice
Imagine P.W. Long of Mule fronting Rollins Band stripped and devoid of any blues reference composing the soundtrack to a horror film massacre in which whole crowds of people are trapped inside a house and slowly dismembered by buzz saws and ice picks. Now imagine that they composed only one song with many variations and played this over and over for 45 minutes. Whose fate would be worse the onstage victims or the ones in the audience? There is no movie and this is no soundtrack but Oxbow’s blend of cinematic post-rock metal has been winning a stalwart core of fans since 1989. Moaning vocals collapsing in pain layered droning guitars and strings. The band’s deliberate eschewing of anything remotely resembling a pop song has endeared them to some more academically minded European art circles and Oxbow is quite comfortable in the company of fellow travelers Lydia Lunch Steve Albini and the Jesus Lizard. The most astonishing thing about The Narcotic Story is Oxbow’s commitment to their sound and their aesthetic vision. Even when most listeners would have walked away the band is passionately convinced that they’re onto something good and soldier on. But is it good? The shape of things to come perhaps? Not sure. Does it rock? Without question: no.
