Oxhy - The Names of God
Oxhy came onto my radar with the stellar soundscapes of Woodland Dance from 2021. Straight away, it was clear that Oxhy was taking inspiration from creators like Throbbing Gristle, who chose to subvert expectations with their seminal 20 Jazz Funk Greats, from 1979. Gristle drew in an audience with an album depicting the band in 1970s garb on the countryside's hilltops, only to embark on a bizarre, psychoactive, and experimental journey. Woodland Dance, much like the follow-up, To Keep The Desert Blooming (2024), captured much of the same energy with a picturesque vision of a summer of wild swimming in the sun, only for the album's content to subvert expectations with loose and mellow meditations. 2025 sees Oxhy return with a similar ethos, only flipped. Gone are the soft ripples of Woodland Dance as Oxhy employs abstraction on the album cover, with a thinly veiled promise of something more cataclysmic. The chaotic reverberations capture modern anxiety and get intercut with the ambience of the inner-city industrial landscape on The Names of God (2025).
The Names of God blends sounds of noise and abstract pop, which have rarely sounded more concise into a viscous, bitter-sweet molasses of an album. From the murky postmodern trip of 'Carnivorous' featuring Susu Laroche to the electrifying beats on 'Feet First', Oxhy operates in the spaces between chaos and conformity. A rollercoaster in slow motion that uses sound design to produce vast drum kits that intend to batter the audience from left to right. An album not content with standing still, each track feels like a ticking bomb in bullet time. Although subversion is always around the corner with tracks like 'Comeaway (and their defeated hearts become the fruit of your sword)', where vibrating acoustic sections wobble endlessly like a memory fading away.
Some highlights include the opener with CRYSTALLMESS, the aptly named 'Goth', along with 'The Grotesque', which paint a grim and dark picture of stagnation yet also serve as a masterclass in movement. Oxhy uses drones that spasm like the blotchy colours of a Windows Media Player background. The lack of cohesion against the lyrics adds tension that transforms the spoken word from calm muttering into a cacophony of mood and threat. However dark the album gets, it balances the mood throughout with 'Telephone Ring', featuring James K. It's one of the album's longer tracks, allowing the duo to weave together asthmatic air horns and violent electrical distortion before transitioning into a succulent breakdown that tickles the brain with an exceptional use of filtering.
Oxhy's genre-bending hits new heights as they attempt to revive big beat by adding flavours of punk and noise. There's a gothic, militaristic energy throughout, with the track 'Critical Threshold' with Felix Lee being a prime example. A militant rejection of authority that genuinely reshapes the big beat aesthetic, returning it to its original ideology. The beats are hard-hitting, and the track is epic as Oxhy flirts with the punk aesthetic. This motif continues throughout the release before being rounded out on the closer, 'Not God's Gift'. There is an attempt to blend a post-post-punk sound with something dour, like shoegaze, through cardiac-arresting drums and a wall of harsh noise that feels shapeless, only confined by a powerful sub-bass.
The calibre of features on The Names of God is unreal. There's a depth to each track, achieved through sublime layering, not often found in such a chaotic outing, where a bleak shadow lurks between evolved bass and haunting melodies that add cinematics crafted out of some truly raw production philosophies. It holds up to the titans of electron soundtrack while retaining its personality and intimacy, being fit for an IMAX experience or the bus when you need a bit of adrenaline shot during a tough and rainy week. I believe Oxhy highlights the chaotic loneliness of inner-city life. Cataloguing the loss of socialisation, there are no more parties or even polite conversation with strangers, just hectic attempts at connection. Throughout the work, there is a perpetual sense of noisy isolation, whether that be through instrumentation, diagenetic sound design, or wickedly desperate vocal performances.
The stories told throughout the album are bleak, if not tragic. Still, there's a distortion-soaked electrical energy that constantly wraps around the record like a sweatband on a 5k, as though Oxhy has distilled the modern "stiff upper lip" mentality, which targets mental stability rather than the avoidance of emotion, from the past. The shades of big beat complement this attitude perfectly as the audience becomes a juxtaposition between the shambolic isolation of our hyper-connected society and the unkillable human spirit.
Tracklist:
Goth feat. CRYSTALLMESS
Carnivorous feat. Susu Laroche
Critical Threshold feat. Felix Lee
The Grotesque
Comeaway (and their defeated hearts become the fruit of your sword) feat. Heith
Telephone Ring feat. James K
Feet First
Prayer of the Infant
Not Gods Gift
Label: xquisite releases (2025)
Oxhy - the names of god
