Oxx

OXX sounds like getting blackout drunk and beating yourself to death with a Thomas Pynchon door stopper. Formed in 2012 in Aarhus Denmark by guitarist/vocalist/lyricist Alex Bossen and drummer Martin Aagard, the group has since released three studio albums, one EP, and five music videos. Following the 2019 release of their third album The Skeleton Is Just A Coat Hanger; These Are The Black Strings That Make You Dance, OXX was able to bring their glorious belligerence to US audiences for the first time with a sprawling month-long trek. In November of 2022 the band joined Cleric on a two-week tour through parts of Europe, and in early 2023 they welcomed new bassist Anders Frodo S. Mikkelsen.

Born out of the Danish punk/metal scene, OXX has since grown into a feral beast of its own by weaving elements of avant/free music, afrobeat, and film scoring into its compositions. The band’s raw, spontaneous blend of chaotic hardcore, sludge, and crust acts as an extension of the lyrics; an unfiltered, feverish stream of thought—bits and pieces of novels, obscure cinema, video games, etc. rushing by in a maelstrom of impressions of existence filtered through the eyes of the woefully unstable.

The Primordial Blues, OXX’s fourth full-length effort, is a monument to misery and a harbinger of perpetual sadness. Citing influences that range from the literary devices of Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov to the works of avant-garde composer Marc Ducret and Brownsville rappers Ka and Sean Price, Bossen explores the ramifications of severe mental illness and the way it permeates our perception of every phenomena around us, elaborating “as your tools of perception become irrevocably twisted, your surroundings twist with them. Your home and your hometown become reflections and reminders of your own insanity.” Translating this bedlam into musical arrangements, each composition on The Primordial Blues interprets a shared set of riffs and motifs scattered across the album, building off one another to outline a labyrinthine structure constantly referencing yet never resembling itself.