I hear a little bit of a Manchester Orchestra vibe in Oxford’s Motion In Colour. This four-tracker, released on Skullcow Records, shows glimpses of a talented band but, for me anyway, it’s not quite consistent enough to jump from ‘good’ territory into ‘great’. There are elements of individual songs that I really like, but not one full song leaps out at me as being excellent. ‘Stars’, for instance, just drifts along a little bit, while ‘Heart and Lungs’ has a really, really strong chorus but the verses are a bit cumbersome and it just feels about a minute too long. It’s a classic case of a talented band not having the ability to trim the fat off their songs to make them better. The four songs here are all good, but I get the impression they could do so much better. A decent starting point nonetheless.
