It’d be pretty churlish to be anything but positive about Spires. What’s not to endorse about such a release? It’s free, it collates the work of the current crop of Oxford bands you’re most likely to see at a live music night out in town, and, perhaps most importantly, it’s really good.
Phantom Theory guitarist Aaron Delgado took it upon himself to pull Spires together after being inspired by the bands he kept seeing whilst playing shows. As he says, “with spotlights on Oxford’s music scene in the form of the film Anyone Can Play Guitar and several articles in national music publications about Oxford’s Blessing Force collective, it seemed like the perfect time to showcase some of the city’s finest bands.”
Whilst the aforementioned Blessing Force collective and its associated artists, along with local music that’s not based generally around guitars and noise don’t get much of a look-in here, this is a handy snapshot of all things guitar-based-Oxford-music at this point in time. It’s also an affirmation of the huge amount of activity that goes on, and an opportunity for grabbing an overview of what these bands actually sound like.
Pigeonholing is stupid, but here’s a bit of it anyway. The acts on Spires fall, rough’n’readily, into a number of categories:
- Noisy indie rock (the most popular in this off-the-cuff series of genres and labels): Black Hats, Dial F For Frankenstein, Phantom Theory, The Rock Of Travolta, Dead Jerichos, The Half Rabbits, Vixens.
- Poppy guitar tunes: Secret Rivals, Alphabet Backwards, Ute, Spring Offensive.
- Out-there electronica: Coloureds, Keyboard Choir (here in the form of their remix of a Laki Mera track).
- Heartfelt ‘epic indie': The Winchell Riots, Gunning For Tamar.
Perhaps unhelpfully, there’ll be no formal reviewing of the work of these bands here. It seems to go against the ethic of Spires, and instead you’re all urged to go and download a copy, and make your own judgments on the music. Obviously, feel free to share them, using that lil’ comments box below.