Oneida, Rated O
Featured Album
A triple album ten years into their career? Let's see another Brooklyn band try that...
In a decade-plus of churning out some of the fiercest, least-compromising, good-humored and heaviest rock from the borough of Brooklyn, one would think that Oneida might have become frustrated or despondent, either calling it quits or overhauling it all in the hopes of landing one modern-rock "hit" and cashing out. They've watched one-time opening bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Liars fly higher and seen other newbie neighbors overnight garner their own glossy spreads.
And yet the trio of Kid Millions, Hanoi Jane and Fat Bobby has maintained the mantra from their 2000 album: "Come On Everybody Let's Rock." On Rated O, a triple CD that serves as the centerpiece of a triptych of releases called "Thank Your Parents," they finally triumph. To call it "rock" doesn't quite convey the freedom the band revels in throughout six sides here. Perhaps "magma": pressurized, red-hot, ever-flowing, Rated O's variant of rock best encapsulates what oozes and smokes here. For every omphalic psychedelic investigation powered by sitar (see "O") there's the terse fuzz-punk fury of "I Was a Wall." "Luxury Travel" updates the Byzantine drone of "The Beginning is Nigh" (from The Wedding) only to reveal that buzz to be as nasty as a swarm of killer bees. And did we mention the dancehall riddim and gnarly toasting of "Brownout in Lagos"? Let's see another Brooklyn band try that.
