“Up With People”
from the album Happy New Year
2006
iTunes
MP3 – “Up With People” [right-click/save-as]
Reflecting the cyclical nature of earth and life itself, Oneida’s eighth full-length album Happy New Year presents ideas of death and rebirth, and the continuity, and yet tenuousness, of existence. It’s a poetic work of circling guitars and melodic phrases and vocal lines repeating and layered like monastic chants. “Up with People” and “History’s Great Navigators” offer suggestions for improvement as the band grooves along with quick drums and purposeful noise; it’s all very much planned, controlled, with Oneida, acting as Virgil, guiding listeners along. Though the screeches and rumblings that occur in some of the songs may occasionally seem arbitrary — though as an album, Happy New Year is much less hard than what the band has previously produced — in fact, everything is very tightly contained. The idea of messiness is only put there to add effect, not because Oneida are losing control of their message and their statement. The record may not promise happiness or salvation, but it does propose ideas that can be contemplated in the time between the winding melodies and riffs, and perhaps one day, we too, like the Pilgrim, can continue on alone.