3 out of 5

Label: Monitor

Produced by: Oxes

We heard a lot about Oxes during their first couple of releases, as the group were shit-stirrers du jour, with a talked about stage presence and some hoax-y / jokey release antics.  They initially had trouble backing this up on album, but by their second disc, they’d shed some of the playfulness which didn’t translate for some straight up rock, and it was a damn fine record.

And then things were quiet for a bit.  The spotlight had passed.  A couple years later, funny song titles were dropped for five untitled tracks on the Oxes EP, which released to – from my point of view – little ceremony, and then it was another quite-a-while before Oxes would release something again.

Oxes EP is stripped down, and it’s also maybe feeling out some ways forward, which didn’t seem to catch fire.  At the tail end of their first wind of inspiration, it also includes a moment of looking back, which is one of the disc’s less impressive moments.  The first three untitled tracks are continuations of Oxxxes’ more patient, nuanced rock action.  They’re heavy, tight interplays of riffage, and build up to what feels like a potentially epic EP, sharpening their approach moreso than ever.  The fourth untitled track isn’t bad, but it plays a little bit like a wanky pledge of allegiance, the kind of stuff you can imagine our dual guitarists standing on their little stagefront platforms (back in the day) and playing while staring blankfaced out into the crowd, while the drummer mindlessly heats his marching beat and drinks a beer.

The last track… is electro rock.  I guess it was that time.  It’s not bad, with its back-masked or processed beat and chugga-chugga guitars fading in and out for impact, but it would maybe have been a better album-ending coda instead of something at the end of only a few songs.  It’s very early Turing Machine, whom I love, but that means it’s also not Oxes, and that it lacks much dimension beyond its concept makes it a bummer to end this EP on.