The Oidz: Self-titled EP
Prison Records
Vinyl | Streaming
Featuring members of Leeds cult favourites Fuzz Lightyear and Volk Soup, The Oidz came into being in a way that compliments the scrappy adrenaline of their music. The band’s frenzied rhythms resemble The Fall played at the wrong speed or Siouxsie & The Banshees performing on an airport runway.
While this by no means does The Oidz’s untamed prowess justice, it does at least provide the uninitiated with a glimpse into their unique variation of egg punk. Similarly, the band’s genesis was far from normal.
The Oidz, before becoming a noisy new-wave vehicle enjoyed by adoring crowds at Brudenell Social Club, were simply a project devoted to fun. It was only when they began to spread their off-kilter noise via cassettes and Google Drive links that their prospects became more ambitious.
Few pieces of art would be finished in ten minutes while being a searing imprint of the maker’s identity and leaving the audience longing for more. And yet, the self-titled debut EP from these Leeds egg-punk savants does so. It’s also their refusal to deviate from their absurd(ly unique), impossible-to-ignore, honed template which makes the four-piece so enigmatic: phat, effects-laden guitar leads; monotone vocal drawl; and steamrolling drums that feel too potent to be executed by just two arms.
The vocals meet at the spoken-word delivery of Kim Gordon and caustic screaming for those who’ve always crave a stranger substitute for riot grrrl: a suitably idiosyncratic funnel for dissecting Gen-Z internet fodder. This is heard on the gripping lead single, Incel, their only track which could be construed as having a ‘message’, with plenty of their entertaining nonsense still present. Ignited by a trip down the dark web, the lyrics hold up a dirty mirror to the basement-dweller of the digital age, the blurred line between being a rabid misogynist or simply playing ‘Xbox all day’, and the surreal idea of their superiority. There couldn’t be a better sonic pairing than the track’s atonal edginess, with enough distortion and discordant riffs to make even egg punk progenitors The Coneheads turn green.
The slower rhythms of Cryptid bf’s intro delicately play with egg punk conventions, but it’s a stunning rug pull of just 15 seconds, rolling into a chaotic series of guitar scrapes. Srsly throws the vocals through scuzzy effects that harmonise them with the guitar’s extraterrestrial tones.
A similar effect happens on Jackin off in the U.F.O, where the final vocal squall is met by production that provides an echoing, robotic sensuality. From start to finish, this final track encapsulates The Oidz and their unsettling charm. Ignited by a sample akin to classic video-games like Crash Bandicoot, its whirlwind (increasingly fever-pitch) guitar and drum fills operate in conjunction to a brilliantly simple bassline, like a snippet of a King Crimson song heard from another room and fired into exhilarating speeds.
Like few others, The Oidz perfectly gauge silliness and seriousness (for making ridiculously great tunes), heaviness and melody, and creativity, with reliably cathartic choruses.
Find copies of the band’s debut EP here.
Follow The Oidz on social media.
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Words by James Kilkenny. Read more of his articles for Louder Than War here.
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