Oneida
Rated O
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Label: Jagjaguwar
Last December, just before Christmas, the Seattle metro area was struck by a snowstorm, the likes of which the city hadn’t seen in decades. To be honest, Seattle doesn’t see much snow at all; the Philadelphian in me gets a chuckle out of the sheer panic that hits the news and grocery stores at the mere mention of flurries in Seattle. Snowplows were unable to deal with the accumulation, so roads were impassable and work was called off. We were all left to our own devices, holed up in our houses. I found a blog that had posted the entirety of Tangerine Dream’s 1970s records and their electronic, Teutonic, analog intensity was all I could listen to that week. The 10-minute compositions of blips and bloops were the only songs that it made sense to listen to when staring out the window, seeing no one, only pristine white and the odd evergreen.
Rated O, the newest atom bomb of mindfuck rock from Brooklyn’s Oneida, shares some of the same transportative powers of Tangerine Dream at their finest. While it exhibits evidence of some electronics and manipulation of sound (such as on the opener “Brownout in Lagos”), the language through which Oneida speaks is closer to Can or Neu!. While not as whacked out as the former and not as focused as the latter, Oneida seem to approach alternative/hard rock instrumentation with a jazz sensibility. The best of Rated O’s songs take a theme and ride it out over the course of five minutes or more; songs don’t sound so much written as birthed. After a messy (and predominantly electronic) beginning with “Lagos,” “What’s Up, Jackal?” and the interminable and grating “10:30 at the Oasis,” Oneida kick into gear with “Story of O,” a song intent on a Motorik groove driven by fuzz bass straight out of a Death From Above 1979 record. “The Human Factor” consists of several minutes of metal machine music feedback while drummer Kid Millions appears to improvise. Before Rated O sounds too lofty, “I Will Haunt You” emerges, sounding like a close relative to Hawkwind’s floating Space Ritual jams. “The Life You Preferred” is reminiscent a more composed, latter-day Comets on Fire.
As Rated O continues, the listener is treated to ever more inventive constructions of bass, guitar and drums with songs like “Ghost in the Room,” “It Was a Wall” and “Saturday.” With the exceptions of the 10-minute plus songs that might be more for the band’s amusement than ours, these songs tend to all sound good. That is, there are interesting things happening in them and they hit the ear in a nice way. Of course there can be a big difference between being good and being fun. Rated O isn’t a fun record. Perhaps being broken into bite-sized chunks would behoove the songs. but its July release date does not. I can’t imagine wanting to listen to Rated O while driving the hot, sticky freeway or while hanging out at the beach. Oneida has made music with this record that’s a soundtrack for stress or for too much caffeination. Like Tangerine Dream, this is taciturn music for a very specific, perhaps dour mindset. How many times have you seen Bowie’s Low or Heroes on some critic’s best-of list? How many times have you actually listened to the second half of those records? Rated O brings the dramatic jams, so just take your medicine and say thanks, I guess.
by Chris Middleman
