Six years after the release of their last studio album, ‘Thin Black Duke’, San Francisco art rock quartet Oxbow have unveiled their first new music since then. ‘1000 Hours’ is taken from the band’s forthcoming eighth album, ‘Love’s Holiday’. The song boasts backing vocals from Roger Joseph Manning Jr. of early 90s power pop quartet Jellyfish and is accompanied by a solemn video directed by John David Levy. Check it out below.
Lead vocalist and lyric-writer Eugene S Robinson says he views the song as a thematic cousin to Oxbow live favourite ‘1000’, from the band’s third album, ‘Let Me Be a Woman’ (1995). Guitarist and music-writer Niko Wenner explains that the music on ‘Love’s Holiday’ “was chiefly inspired by and written for my family. We’ve had two children born and my father die while writing and working on this record.” Robinson adds that he’s “always been chagrined that no one understood that our songs were love songs … listening to a record of exclusively love songs, I can see how no one saw that.”
A statement from the band acknowledges love as “the organising principle” behind the writing of the album. Although it should be said that there is a (possibly deliberate) ambiguity to the album’s title; is it preoccupied by a holiday on which there is an abundance of love, or with a feeling that love itself has taken a leave of absence? ‘1000 Hours’, dominated as it is by Manning’s haunting, choral backing vocals and Wenner’s melancholic guitar work, suggests that the latter will be the case. ‘Love’s Holiday’ is released via Ipecac on July 21st. Pre-order it here.
