Pitchfork

Memories of college and college-rock jangle hung over Oxford Collapse's 2006 Sub Pop debut Remember the Night Parties, the Brooklyn trio's third album overall. Once college is out of your system, though, it's not something one can easily relive, and so new Oxford Collapse single "Spike of Bensonhurst" takes some optimistic strides into the future-- by way of the past. With pealing bells, anthemic drumming, and Zombies-esque psych-pop keyboards building on Remember the Night Parties' moments of grandeur, singer Michael Pace surveys his new accommodations and deems them awesome. "Don't you agree what a wonderful place we're in?" he and bassist Adam Rizer sing on the chorus.

Adulthood isn't all it's cracked up to be, however. This "place we're in" turns out to be Mom and Dad's house. "We kept your room just the way it was five years ago/ All your books, all your clothes/ Your Vans lined up in rows," Pace and Rizer sing, in the first of several keenly observed details. Even as Oxford Collapse broaden their sound beyond 1980s indie touchstones, the production retains the loose, early-R.E.M. indistinctness that gave their past songs of transition and uncertainty an appealingly casual-sounding warmth. They say you can never go home again, but that's not quite true-- it's just that your parents might take some convincing.

[from the "Spike of Bensonhurst" 7"; due 05/13/08 on Flameshovel]