The Animalhouse E.P.

If this CD was a holiday, it would be Thanksgiving. While the Americans honour the founders of their great country, we, by purchasing this, are honouring the men who brought Oxford into the limelight as one of the most important cities in rock, thanks to the success of their respective bands and their excellence in the field of production.

Mark Gardener and Loz Colbert were in Ride, one of the first Oxford bands to break into the charts, and certainly the band most influential in building Oxford up into what it has become today, paving the way for bands like Supergrass and Radiohead to follow in their footsteps. Signed to Creation in the early nineties, the group also included Andy Bell, who recently joined Oasis. Now Gardener and Colbert have now teamed up with ex-Mystics vocalist and Supergrass producer Sam Williams along with bassist Hari T to form The Animalhouse. This, their debut E.P., has been recorded over the last year and comes at a time when many feel that the music scene in Oxford is waning and that there simply aren't any really great bands left. It certainly goes a long way to silencing such comments.

Opening track "Animal" snarls and grinds its way along, drum and bass style beats interspersed with atmospheric keyboard lines and chunky guitars adding to an intense feeling of menace. Mark and Sam's growling vocals give it an undeniable urgency. Imagine Supergrass covering Marilyn Manson and you're not far off. At just over five and a half minutes, however, it seems to go round in circles a little and never quite reaches its destination, but it is easy to imagine a live version being absolutely blistering.

Second track "Sodium Glow" is something of a disappointment: all trip hop drums, scratchy piano and cliché chemical-induced lyrics, it arrives and departs without making any sort of impact. Closing track "Essence", however, is superb. Beginning as a quiet, melancholy ballad it gradually builds into one of the most epic tracks you're ever likely to hear, adding strings to the already full instrumentation and sending the song skywards. Although longer than "Animal", it never feels like it and before you know it, the song's over and you're left gasping for breath, knowing how much this band is going to do for the Oxford music scene. Again.

The Animalhouse play the Zodiac on February 12th.

J. Swarbrick