Even three decades beyond the punk era, there's still a lingering urge to scoff at the supposed bloat and indulgence of the double album. Concision is often held as a virtue for many modern indie bands, and, let's face it, there are scant few double albums in rock that really have the ideas and vision to sustain their runtime. Save for prolific geniuses like Frank Zappa or Prince, the even-rarer triple album is more common for weighty anthologies, or documenting the live shows of acts with drooling fan bases, from the Grateful Dead to Pearl Jam. Sure, the Clash brought us a rare triple triple album of original material at the peak of their critical capital, but even that was reviled in certain circles. So... why on earth would any band release a triple album now?
Maybe you've never met Oneida. When so inclined, they'll fill a whole side of vinyl with one long track, one whole CD's running time with two or three-- and if you haven't seen them on the festival circuit lately, it's because they went ahead and started their own. The reason they can do this (aside from keeping their dayjobs) is that their fans-- being open-minded enough to absorb the many permutations of repetitive, inexhaustible rhythms, and stinging vintage organ and guitar over 10 years-- eat it right up. Those fans won't be surprised by the behemoth Rated O-- some have been waiting for it ever since it was planned and then scrapped before 2006's Happy New Year.
Before putting the idea of a 3xCD set aside, Drummer Kid Millions told an interviewer the project was "the stone tablets of Onieda." Given how hard it is to nail the band down to one sound, figuring out what those tablets could be remained a mystery. The good news: Between beat-heavy studio workouts, some of their loosest instrumental jams, and their most liberal use of "O"-related puns in song titles, Oneida were considerate enough to build it all around lean, no-frills rock on par with the best of their earlier work. Rated O contains the band's wildest experiments while still covering most of their previous sonic tentpoles.
The first disc introduces the band as beat-hungry, dub-obsessed studio scientists, where at least 10 minutes go by before any sound resembling a guitar is discernible. While opener "Brownout in Lagos" is ostensibly inspired by dancehall, its rubbery and distorted beat sounds only remotely like that genre or any of Oneida's previous work. It features bona-fide toasting from Dad-Ali Ziai, but the guest is another texture in a very strange soup of radar blips, tin cans, and faraway explosions. "What's Up, Jackal?" begins with echoing drums and a hiccupping Eastern tone, before leading into muffled screaming and a dizzy studio collage that sounds like the aural equivalent of a strobe light, with that hiccup being the only constant. The first minute of 10 on "10:30 at the Oasis" has a similar fakeout before emerging into a more delirious and layered version of the sleek jams that Trans Am were later known for (which makes sense, as Trans Am's Phil Manley/Double Rainbow contributes here, alongside former Onieda axeman Papa Crazee). This first disc is new for band, fans, and unacquainted listeners alike, and there aren't a whole lot of hooks to guide anyone. As with much of Oneida's work, it starts and ends on the beat, leading listeners through percussive whirlwinds of psychedelic sound.
The middle disc is closer to the band's live sound with few overdubs, and is an exemplary document of the hell the band can raise as an honest-to-god rock outfit. "The River" starts from Oneida's familiar monotone patter before uniting on a simple but massive-sounding theme, showing more melodic certainty and fearless classic-rock worship than they have in a while. Proto-metal riffs power spacey but insistent workouts like "I Will Haunt You" and "Ghost in the Room", while more exotic rhythms push "The Life You Preferred"; these tracks sprint and shimmy and drone without ever losing momentum. As the sluggish chant of "Luxury Travel" slows to a halt, the most stretched-out part of the three-disc set begins with disc C: "O" is an anchorless sitar-laden haze until minute five, when the rhythm builds and the guitars coagulate around brief, hypnotic tones. "End of Time" is a formless, nervous drone (smoke break!) that leads into the 20-minute "Folk Wisdom". Make no mistake: The band is jamming.
But Oneida's version of jamming tends to be a more pulsing, atmospheric, moody affair than the scale-fingering aimlessness the word probably calls to mind, and the tracks on the third disc are no exception. They don't have the same layers or utilize the studio in quite the same way as last year's instrumental Preteen Weaponry did, but marathon sessions like "Folk Wisdom" maintain their anxious, yearning edge while revealing the intuition and chemistry of the band through its many subtle shifts and turns. The last section of Rated O may feel like work to some, but at this point in the record (and their careers), it also feels earned.
While it's not quite three discs of all killer and no filler-- the plodding anguish of "The Human Factor" is difficult enough the first time through-- Rated O could stand easily as three discrete records, with each of them meriting their own release. Putting them all together is what makes it a statement: In an era when easy availability of music makes attention spans dwindle, it's an audacious listen the first time around, not to mention the repeated listens that Oneida records often reward. And as music gets increasingly reduced to a "niche interest" (shudder) and focuses more on the novelty of the physical package, the triple-gatefold Rated O is undoubtedly a beautiful package.
More than anything, Rated O is part and parcel of the band's long-standing and always-increasing ambition--don't forget this massive slab is part of a triptych of albums, with the third installment yet to come. Few bands push themselves this far from their comfort zone, fewer still this late in their career-- and that slice of the pie chart gets even smaller when considering what little attention the band has received, even in indie circles, while they've continued to innovate and sweat. Maybe you've got some other Brooklyn band pegged as your creative north star-- and that's cool, this year has some contenders-- but Oneida are the only band running that I could tell a listener with a straight face, yes, it's worth three discs, and it's worth your time.
