Oneida
have become one of the more rewarding groups in
experimental
music in the mid-2000s, since they're so unfailingly curious about all their detours. Catatonic
psych
-
rock
, heavy
blues
dirge,
post-punk
,
garage
, the anxious blipping of a vintage keyboard -- it's all fair territory for them. 2005's
Wedding
is no different.
Hanoi Jane
Kid Millions
, and
Bobby Matador
drop some inventive
pop
with
"You're Drifting"
and
"High Life,"
two songs with real melodies that still manage the unlikely instrumentation and the misdirection you've come to expect. A violin punctuates an exalted ending chorus, blurry organs wail, and -- of course -- someone pisses in Prospect Park. Both songs are like more lucid versions of those
Eric Gaffney
contributions on
Sebadoh
's old albums. (
"Holy Picture"
on
III
being just one example.) But that's only one facet of
. Speaking of violins, the album begins with
"Eiger,"
where the Swiss mountaintop becomes a place for proclamations to pretty German girls and a full chamber quartet.
"Run Through My Hair"
matches a brittle mandolin to electric guitar stabs and treated drums for some great psyche weirdness, while
"Heavenly Choir"
is some clammy sewer drain version of 1970s
boogie rock
, like an alternate universe
Edgar Winter Group
. None of these tangents sound forced, or made for the sake of being screwy. Instead they're twisty vines off a central root. So when
opens the nearly eight-minute
"Beginning Is Nigh"
with a light saber warble and some steadily building organ, you know you're in for a ride. Unfortunately, you're not -- there's a guy mumbling, and a guitar making some noise, but nothing really happens. That's okay, though.
come right back with
"August Morning Haze,"
which brings the strings back to match wits with the liquid tones of a Rhodes and some more impressive vocal harmonies.
might not be
's most way-out album, but it's as satisfyingly restless as anything in their catalog. ~ Johnny Loftus