ONEIDA - The Wedding

Open the "music box" of Oneida and you'll find a surprise inside.

"The Wedding" is, first and foremost, the product of what the band themselves called "the biggest music box on the East Coast." A collection of contraptions of every kind, assembled by the group in a New York warehouse: sheets of plywood, pieces of old industrial machinery, discarded ship gears, and more than 70 saw blades that screech against a variety of nails and metal spikes with just the turn of a crank.

But — as we said — the "box" holds surprises, and what surprises they are!

Despite the menacing arsenal, the psychedelic hooligans of Each One Teach One unexpectedly veer toward melody, even unveiling a string section arranged by Brian Coughlin (avant-garde musician and leader of the Fireworks Ensemble).

A conversion on the road to Damascus, or a ploy to escape the creeping creative dry spell barely concealed by the previous "Secret Wars"? Perhaps, more simply, the Brooklyn quartet just wanted to keep a promise…

When "Secret Wars" came out, in fact, Oneida announced that their next album would be "a baroque pop masterpiece" they'd been working on since 2001. "A record made of choruses that are good for the heart." Drummer Kid Millions went even further: "It'll be the Left Banke playing like a machine." As it turns out, their epileptic jams have suddenly "shrunk" into short songs (save for the 7 minutes of space-blues delirium that is "The Beginning Is Nigh"), though still shot through with flashes of hallucination.

After hitting "play," though, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd slipped the wrong CD into the player…

"The Eiger" kicks things off, and it's almost like hearing Hanoi Jane recite a Shakespearean sonnet backed by a chamber orchestra.

Is it a joke? Maybe so, because "Lavender" quickly arrives to bring back the Oneida of "Each One Teach One": aggressive guitar riffs, assaulting drumming, a barrage of keyboards and raspy vocals shape a nightmare straight out of the best new wave.

But there's something even more "ancient" in the music of these four garage-rockers who chose to name themselves after a Native American tribe. Something that revives the most "deviant" spirit of psychedelia (also evoked by the cover artwork), of prog and of kraut-rock from their golden years.

Something that takes on the shape of the Eastern-tinged liturgy of "Spirits," with its slow, ceremonial, Velvet Underground-like pace amid menacing swirls of organ, tinkling bells and a dark guitar mantra, or of the even more solemn "Heavenly Choir," marked by squared-off drumming and sharp guitar riffs.

When the surreal register takes over instead, you might stumble into the deranged synth-and-toy-organ videogame of "High Life," or the drunken little string march of "Know."

And, at the peak of the tension, you end up tangled in the sulfurous pastiche of "Did I Die," which opens like Black Sabbath, with guitars scraping at your nerves, before derailing into an unpredictable krautrock epilogue.

These are tracks of undeniable hypnotic charm, built on dark, diseased (dis)harmonies that turn baroque excess into grotesque exaggeration rather than mere ornamental flourish. Just listen to the folktronica gag of "Run Through My Air," with its pompous acoustic arpeggios, to believe it.

At other times, though, it seems Oneida haven't yet fully mastered this new sonic material, as when they try to clone late-period Mercury Rev ("You're Drifting," sung by Jane in a dreamy, Donahue-like register over a backdrop of electronic gurgles, and "Charlemagne," with a psychedelic little voice riding a carousel of synths and violins), or when they turn out listless folk sketches (the closing "August Morning Haze").

Let's be honest, though: Oneida ran the risk of becoming the classic pseudo-intellectual indie band, holed up in its ivory tower and worshipped by a sect of snobbish cacophony enthusiasts.

They could have coasted for a lifetime on a record like "Each One Teach One".

Instead, they chose to "get their hands dirty" with violins and choruses.

It may not be "a baroque pop masterpiece" and might end up as an isolated episode in their discography, but "The Wedding" is the record of a band of real worth.

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30/04/2026