Cassette Review // Oxx "The Primordial Blues" (Nefarious Industries)
There was a time back in the early 2000s when I didn't listen to as many hardcore bands as I used to because it felt like the genre was flooded and just too many bands wanted to have singing with their screaming. Here we are some twenty years later and I'm finally listening to more bands I'm hearing for the first time because it feels like we're getting back to the roots of it all. Listening to Oxx makes me think back to the first time I heard the band Nora and went down that rabbithole of listening to everything I could on Ferretstyle (though back then that had to be done with CDs)
"The Primordial Blues" begins with pianos but quickly becomes filled with big drumming. There are a lot of guitar notes in here, which get frantic, and then there is screaming. A bit like Darkest Hour or even Snapcase in a music sense but with deeper growls. Oxx just has a way of pulling everything out of that violent and destructive sound I've loved for so long but that people have tried to taint by adding unnecessary components.
By the end of this cassette you'll hear sad strings to both start and end the titular track. This is the type of thing that a band such as From Autumn To Ashes would've done in their prime. It just gives this overall feeling of making the album feel like an album and not just a collection of songs. Everything about this sound is very loud, very in your face and just that bridge between hardcore and metal.
While Oxx might be too busy screaming to attempt any sort of melody, the fact is there are still a lot of complexities within this music. As with punk rock, I think the common misconception is to play as fast and as loud as you can, but what Oxx is doing here takes a certain level of talent that not all musicians possess. That factor coupled with this raw aggression just brings "The Primordial Blues" out swinging and it never lets up.
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