Preteen Weaponry
"Preteen Weaponry" is part one of the "Thank Your Parents" triptych of Oneida releases. Oneida members past, present and future all contributed to this project. It reminds Oneida of what a live performance might sound like. It contains captured improvisational moments married with craft. You can consider it an introduction to their forthcoming triple album "Rated O", which is part two of the fore-mentioned triptych (to be released by Jagjaguwar in early 2009).
Surprising and delighting its fans over the course of a fascinating career, this Jagjaguwar band again delivers a successful detour-- a record that consists of one three-part, nearly all-instrumental track.
A particular keyboard sound used to menace a lot of Oneida songs, pulsing and overheating like a hail of casino marquees. It becomes more of a beacon in the gloom of Preteen Weaponry's first track, as the trio spreads its might around, letting some of it linger and steam in the background, some of it drift to the…
Matched by some astonishing live shows in summer 2008 that showed the band's live power had reached a newly obsessive, maniacal height, Oneida's Preteen Weaponry, the first in a planned sequence of three albums, conveys a strong taste of that experience across its three parts, all named after the album itself.
While filled with rich textures, layered sounds, hypnotic percussion and rippling waves of noise, it ends up being more plodding than epic.