OXCART'S third studio album is a prog rock affair based around the story of a young beekeeper returning from war. Dare I ask which war? I feel this may be relevant to my understanding of this concept album.
The intro Drawbridge marches us into battle, rather unnecessarily I feel. Delusions is a bright enough salvo and gives a good indication of Oxcart’s sound. It’s heavy and haunting and definitely has a feel of the 70’s about it. The use of keyboards has me thinking of a band like Deep Purple. The Light continues in this vein with delicate piano intro. Loud layered guitar is the order of the day. Zenith ups the ante and the band sound tight and live. The vocals tend to meld into everything else a little too much and I find it quite difficult to pick out anything other than the odd line here and there. It is therefore quite difficult for me to follow the story of this young beekeeper.
Ember is a bit of a damp squib. Fire never quite becomes the inferno it sets out to be but we do finally get some lead guitar work, which is essential on any rock album and it breaks this track up nicely. Possum is the ballad style track which underpins the album. It has a touch of Kurt Cobain about the vocals and Blind Melon about the music and arrangement. Of all the tracks on this album it works the best for me. There is an air of desolation about it and the slide style lead adds to this. Again it’s a shame the lyrics aren’t a little more discernible.
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Nationalism Anthem picks up where Possum leaves off and then runs into a pounding tom tom led track buried in washes of riff. This album does make use of keyboard but that does not seem fully integrated, or rather does not really add anything to the overall sound. I think they could make even more use of the keyboards. The Beekeeper illustrates my point. It is the least heavy song on this album but in my opinion a strong one. The organ on this track augments the guitars well and the vocals for that matter and I can hear lyrics!
The album climaxes with Yesterday which seems like a sister track to Beekeeper, again it has that mellow vibe. I take this to mean our man has finally found some solace. “Are you hearing, what I’m sending/do we have an understanding/are you with me, or against me?” Well, at this stage I would say the jury is out. There is some good solid musicianship on this album but no tracks that really blow me away. That is not to say this might not happen sometime in the future, particularly if Oxcart were to let the bees swarm a bit.
Oxcart online
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