Sounding like an evil, sweaty, down on the Bayou mix
of heavy rock, metal and jazz, Oxbow delivers an outstanding album. I
am totally blown away by An Evil Heat.
While the individual parts of the music themselves
may not be overly complex or remarkable, the way they are interwoven makes
for a quite enjoyable experience. While the playing is very far from busy,
the use of odd times, breaks and refreshing rhythm changes abound to keep
the listener interested. The band finishes off with a 20+ minute wall
of sludge noise, drone track that just puts the icing on the cake.
Saving the best for last are the vocals, which sound
like Jimi Hendrix if he were a voodoo shaman. Vocalist Eugene Robinson
stretches and contorts his voice into all manner of wails, howls, and
grit to give yet another delicious layer. The depraved howls rattle and
jar us as we are taken on a ride through a world of domestic violence
and dark backwater secrets. Totally essential and already guaranteed to
be one of my albums of the year.
Sit down and listen up, it's story time. That's what
Oxbrow's latest album seems like. Singer Eugene Robinson's stories set
to background music (which ends up being problematic at some point as
the music seems almost an afterthought and is not used to enhance the
twisted visuals Robinson is creating.) The stories he tells are disturbing,
concentrated on decay and despair, and the band's tendency to double and
sometimes triple track the vocals with yells and grunts make the already
disturbing imagery even more so. This is definitely an album to sit down,
focus and listen to. Yet as great as some of the songs are, Robinson's
yelps and screams become more of an annoyance than an enhancement of the
story, something that one could do without and still enjoy the experience
of this spoken poetry.
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