Review Summary: This god of love destroys and creates / and this god of love is great
If you'd told me even a fortnight ago that Oxbow had ever been, had always been, would ever be
a romantic band, I would have spat down the receiver and implored you to spare me your cruel games. Don't call me like that. And yet, if you take it from frontman Eugene Robinson, that's about the shape of the batch. “I've always been chagrined that no one understood that our songs were love songs,” he muses, though more clemently than one might presume: having looked back at the Oxbow catalogue in the context of
Love's Holiday (an album full of
recognisable love songs), he now professedly gets that we didn't get it.
Lawd be thanked. The prospect of Robinson's chagrin is equal parts hideous, immoderate, and, well, exactly why we poxy lot gravitated to Oxbow in the first place. The man has screamed, howled, yelped, hissed, gobbed and tittered his slobbery way across many of the most contorted freaksongs ever to wear the loose-fitting cloak of noise rock; he stands as one of its recognisable scatologists alongside the Jesusly lizard-man David Yow, and his band's discography is second to none. The frankly ludicrous pedigree of Oxbow's three-decade career extends to everything from archaic hardcore thrashings to slinky blues haze-outs, and though their steps from album to album have never been less than cohesive, their progression is hardly something you'd have thought to associate with a fixed destination. There's a grim finality to all their records that is hardly indicative of sequels-to-be; it's easy to picture the lengthy gaps between them as necessary pitstops to account for plenteously spilled gasoline. Oxbow both sicken and satiate at every turn; it's a rare audience that they leave wanting more.
And yet, now we have
love to contend with - the apparent unheralded fibre of the whole Oxbow universe, and now its outright focus? Is this where things were always headed? Why not!
Love's Holiday acquits itself surprisingly well as such, with Robinson's credentials as an ambassador of everything filthy and profane lending themselves to the messiest activities of the heart: love as lonesomeness, love as heartache, love as erotic desperation, love as impetus, love as a lurking agent of depression. This record covers the lot in fine style, and with polish to spare. If
Thin Black Duke saw Oxbow don a top hat and tailcoat in uncharacteristically slick form, then
Love's Holiday endeavours to maintain the same gentlemanly trappings while their leggings, long since uncomfortably taut, finally burst open at the seam (you know which one).
This comes with a distinct shift of narration: unlike many past excursions into sexuality (take "Gal" or "Sawmill"), the Robinson of
Love's Holiday declines to play the sordid overtones of its subject matter for voyeuristic horror; his personas are vessels of desire rather than agents of chaos, his emphasis consistently weights passion over perversion, and his narratives invite unprecedented levels of sympathy. Take a small step into the man's fatalism, and his romantic testimonials could very well be yours too, whether he's suffocated by love on the wane ("All Gone"), feverish with its carnal impetus ("Icy White & Crystalline"), or intent on following it through to plain debauchery ("Million Dollar Weekend"). Oxbow's trademark menace finds a new voice in this inner tumult, a more interior experience than those once imposed by Robinson's desperado personas on the world around them. In turn, the man's soul is as naked as it has ever been.
In keeping with this, the band's instrumental side is as diversely realised, prone to understatement, and (I shudder) tastefully rendered as it has ever been. Guitarist Niko Wenner's wiry arpeggiations and caustic blues manglings have lost not one jot of their edge, as the opening pair in particular flexes with relish, but the breadth of the band's palette occasionally rivals Robinson for MVP status, and, together with
Thin Black Duke, brings them within gobbing distance of the florid term 'art rock' (don't bother trying to fingerpoint 'noise' here; that bird has flown). We hear this at its best on "All Gone", the Oxbow equivalent of a demure piano ballad (she's got claws, sugar): this track kicks off with a disarmingly vibrant spiral of choral oohs and lahs, constantly on the periphery as a foil to Robinson's groans and whisperings, selling a haunted snapshot of impending loss, "Lovely Murk"'s queasy beauty is underpinned by delicate string swells and a keynote feature from Lingua Ignota, while "Million Dollar Weekend" enjoys the benefit of full chamber accompaniment to appropriately decadent effect. Not all innovations are as well-placed - Roger Joseph Manning Jr.'s vocals aren't quite enough to sustain "1000 Hours", a perplexing choice of single and a rare Oxbow song that might be considered ponderous to a detriment - but the advancements
Love's Holiday makes to Oxbow's vocabulary are largely cogent.
Delicious stuff, but there are caveats to be had: though its heady theme never passes from sight,
Love's Holiday is a little diffuse in its transitions from chamber to chamber. The run from "The Night the Room Started Burning" to "The Second Talk" suffers here; though these tracks are well above water by the sum of their parts, their placement masks the distinctions between their respective scenes of sweat and steam. This is a shame given how neatly the bookending pinch of "Dead Ahead" and "Gunwale" tie the whole package together - listen to the two in isolation and the blank space between the former's propulsive rock and the latter's spectral heave-ho! is fecund ground for a girthy imagination. A set of romantic ups and downs that pave an intractable decline, all in between two bleak excerpts from the diary of a lovelorn sailor? The reality isn't so far off, but it's more a murky descent than a tangible sequence of developments.
As luck would have it, Oxbow have always taken murk in their stride. Their records tend to reward repeat listens, and
Love's Holiday is no exception to this end, but its enduring value will rest heavily on how closely one follows the thread of Robinson's flushed ponderings. Though the band's most visceral titillations are shy to split the difference this time around, the sensitive listener will likely find themselves well-satisfied nevertheless. This record nourishes Oxbow's most morose tendencies more generously than ever, and the fruit they bear is oh-so-flatteringly proportioned. All licentious records should have nautical tie-ins. Seamen fuck.
