The menacing The Balls in the Great Meat Grinder Collection appeared in 1992, and after 1995’s Steve Albini-produced Let Me Be a Woman, Oxbow signed to the SST label for 1997’s Serenade in Red, which featured guest vocals from Marianne Faithfull. They released a split EP with the Italian band White Tornado in 1999, followed by An Evil Heat in 2002. The compilation Love That’s Last: A Wholly Hypnographic and Disturbing Work Regarding Oxbow arrived in 2006. A new studio LP, The Narcotic Story, was released via Hydra Head Records in 2007. A decade later, Oxbow returned with their seventh studio long-player, the pugilistic Thin Black Duke.
Support: Spotlights
Spotlights occupies the space between a push-and-pull of jarring metal catharsis and sweeping distortion. Even as both sides fight for supremacy, neither extreme ever fully tightens its grip, allowing waves of melodic vocals and expressive sonic wizardry to breathe in the middle. This deft balancing act allows the trio – husband and wife Mario Quintero (guitar, vocals, keyboards) and Sarah Quintero (bass, vocals) along with Chris Enriquez (drums) – to forge their own path. Armed with an uncanny ability to wield both darkness and light, the trio’s fourth full-length, Alchemy for the Dead, explores something we all deal with, but which few embrace….
