Oneida
Each One Teach One
[Jagjaguwar; 2002]
Rating: 6.5
Stockholm Syndrome-- that peculiar condition in which a captive grows to
love and respect his captor-- is real, and if you're skeptical, you can
experience it yourself with Oneida's Each One Teach One. A band
with one the greatest, hokiest stage names in rock ties you up, stares
you down, and works you over like Lennox Lewis pounding the heavy bag.
After thirty minutes of tunneling, psychedelic 70s sludge (only the
first of two discs), Oneida spits in your face, daring you to love them.
Each One Teach One goes right for the throat: the numbing, rusty buzz
of "Sheets of Easter" is one of the least enticing ways I can imagine opening
a record, yet somehow, after absorbing the full impact of this 14-minute
onslaught, I realized I'd enjoyed myself. It's hard to recommend a relentlessly
hypnotic slab of skull-crushing repetition, but "Sheets of Easter" is exactly
the sort of ballsy move that makes so many love and respect Oneida. Churning
guitars cycle a heart-stopping riff ad nauseam, but the effect is so mesmerizing,
it's hard to fault the band for stealing a quarter-hour of my life away.
During "Antibiotics", the second and final track on disc one, Oneida sets
the brain-blender from frappe to puree. It begins with a slick organ line
courtesy of Fat Bobby, and seems to tout another sixteen minutes of
intoxicating drone, but that catchy melody gives way, mutating in fractal
order and deviating further and further from its set course. Guitars flare
up, slightly off-cue, effects kick in unexpectedly, and the keyboard riff
itself slithers into a different skin. From deep within the ever-changing
swirl-- and just past the ten-minute mark-- an actual song emerges, but
naturally, the shit hits the fan. What became solid for a moment soon
collapses. There are no survivors.
The first disc is startlingly entertaining, given its repetitive nature, but
its only real purpose is preparation-- an overblown effort to numb the
listener's senses-- as without its tirades as contrast, disc two is terribly
dull. Oneida has until now thrived on full-tilt sonic pandemonium, songs
like "All Arounder", "Pure Light Invasion", and the hilarious, brilliant
"Fat Bobby's Black Thumb", but somewhere between Anthem of the Moon
and their latest, their signature aural riot has dispersed. Guitarist Papa
Crazy and bassist Hanoi Jane have improved considerably, but that hurts more
than it helps: they seem content to reproduce the pummeling assault of disc
one, yet in their increased technical assurance, they lose the primal fury of
old.
Disc two does hide a pair of choice cuts-- "Black Chamber" and "No Label"--
which benefit from Fat Bobby's swank organ and a killer bass roll. On the
downside, they're stranded at the end of an otherwise monotonous set, and
neither plays to the band's frantic strength. A handful of similarly decent
tracks would have eliminated the need for a first disc of will-snapping
indoctrination; Each One Teach One leads with a sucker-punch, and
Oneida spend the rest of the album praying the superintendent breaks things
up before everyone realizes they've forgotten how to fight.
-Eric Carr, January 17th, 2003