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The Oranges
Band: Two Thousands
Perhaps one of the many things that made the Pixies so great is that they struck the perfect balance between using discordance to get a rise out of the listener while simultaneously playing just enough of a melody to keep him coming back for more. Many bands have tried to imitate this style over the years some successfully, some not. On Two Thousands, The Oranges Band teeters right on the edge of accomplishing this balance; at times, they fall off this edge, but mostly they end up finding their way back. Two Thousands is a re-release of the Baltimore bands first two EPs on Morphius Records ($5 EP and 900 Miles of Fucking Hell) before they signed to Lookout! in 2002. So what we have here is the humble beginnings of The Oranges Band, an important thing to remember when comparing this release to last years full-length debut, All Around. Though re-mastered, the tracks on this reissue are still somewhat rough. The vocals are a little too buried at times, and the extreme repetition of riffs in both the choruses and verses gets to be a bit much. Yet underneath it all, you can hear a hook dying to come to the surface. On songs such as Stars Are Ours (Stuck) and Sweater Weather, this never happens; however on All Those Marching Feet, the hook just barely breaks through to the listener. Thats why it is unfortunate that this song goes on for too long and falls into the riff-repetition trap mentioned above. The diligent listener might still be around 4:15 into the song, but several others may have already skipped to the next track. It may not be surprising that the one song on this release that strikes the perfect balance between discord and melody is the song theyve had the most success with, the upbeat OK Apartment. All said, these two EPs worked better alone than they do together on one release. Somehow, having a singer without much variation in his voice and an affinity for repetitive guitar riffs do not result in a death sentence for The Oranges Band; and certainly this is a credit to the bands style. However, this rears itself as more of a problem than a novelty when it goes on for more than six or seven tracks.
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