Ox: Dust Bowl Revival

This is what I’m guessing: Ox, a group of country music fans from north of the border, got their hands on a bunch of hallucinogens and an old, lovable boat of a car, and drove around the U.S. blowing their minds listening to old 70s songwriters and druggies. Along the way they crammed their experiences and their influences into Dust Bowl Revival.

They fell especially hard for Neil Young, whose sound is all over the album, from the “After the Gold Rush” delicacy of “Stolen Car” to the “Heart of Gold” pulse of “She Shot Me Down” to the plaintive vocals throughout. Interesting that with four covers on the album there isn’t a single Neil Young, but then again, why bother? The whole album is a sort of tribute.

They also pay homage to Springsteen: the line “I got an old turntable and a radio, American Union made,” which opens “Stolen Car,” is a clear echo of “I got a ’69 Chevy with a 396, Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor.” With lesser talents it might be cheap imitation, but Ox makes “Stolen Car” every bit as good as Bruce or Neil would have. And while Neil is certainly palpable on Dust Bowl, the main influence may be the decade of the 70s. Between “Stolen Car” and “Stolen Bike,” which say, respectively, “like it was 1979” and “it was 1974,” they develop a sort of 70s/kleptomaniacal theme.

Ox can stretch out beyond all of this, too, with varying degrees of success. “Blue Morning” is a bouncy, “Sesame Street”-style good times song; the song that closes the album is a crystalline rendition of Woody Guthrie’s heartbreaker “Deportee.” Like any road trip, Dust Bowl Revival does get a bit dull at times, but it also has moments you wouldn’t want to miss.

- Thomas Vale
Ox (Second Nature)