Spring Offensive - Worry Fill My Heart

(Self-released, 2012)

“Worry Fill My Heart,” the latest release from the ever entrepreneurial Spring Offensive, continues the band's knack for packing all of their songs to the gills with poignant real life sentiments while being impossibly catchy. Making ends meet, being stuck in a dead-end job, identity crisis - they weave all of these topics into an epic modern tale, with jerky call and response guitars and some of the most impressively concise songwriting in Oxford. The contrasting breezy production helps to offset the heavy subject matter to make this an unlikely foot tapper. B-side “Carrier” is just as good and perhaps twice as emotive. Both songs are also accompanied by excellent videos and once again prove Spring Offensive to one of the most ambitious bands in town. Show me a better indie band in Oxford right now – oh, you can't.

[Originally published in Oxfordshire Music Scene magazine, issue 18]

http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue18.pdf

  Enjoy the videos!

Various Artists - Spires: A Collection of Music From Oxford Bands

(Free Download, 2011)

When NME recently ran an article on the ‘mysterious’ Blessing Force scene, it gave the nation the impression that those bands were running the Oxford music scene when in fact a lot of regular punters and hard working Oxford bands had hardly heard of most of them. Here, Aaron from Phantom Theory has taken this as an opportunity to compile a collection of those Oxford bands which are really out there, gigging, making music and working hard. If you follow the local scene then you’ll recognise the bands spotlighted here; Black Hats, Dead Jerichos, Dial F, TROT, Ute, Spring Offensive et al. This isn’t a surprising compilation by any means, and the songs collected here are among the respective bands’ most well known. It’s a simple idea - just as Jon Spira’s upcoming documentary Anyone Can Play Guitar will attempt to give a history lesson on Oxford music, Spires catalogues some of the city’s best current bands. Don’t lament the bands which have been left off this compilation, the idea behind Spires is admirable and it’s free, so go direct those who have been misinformed by NME to go download it.

http://spirescompilation.wordpress.com/

[Originally printed in Oxfordshire Music Scene magazine, issue 12, February 2011]

http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue12.pdf