Thirty years on from CBGB's heyday, New York's freak flag flies in cheaper postal districts. Alongside Liars and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Oneida spearheaded a Brooklyn underground scene, playing superdense psychedelic grunge rock with repetitive riffs and unhinged harmonics. Happy New Year opens with Distress, a quasi-medieval chant underscored by sunshine acid guitar, before bleeding into the distorted Krautrock keyboards and layered vocals of the title track. But, like the Bowery before them, the streets of Brooklyn that spawned the band are being gentrified, and Oneida's self-built studio is being bulldozed for a shopping mall, perhaps explaining the album's oddly elegiac quality.
Jagjaguwar/Rough Trade