Oxford Collapse

Bits

[4/5]

Because the first thing you hear is the revving engine of what may or may not be a 1970 Dodge Challenger, it’s fitting that Bits rockets off the starting line with distortion-soaked rager “Electric Arc.” From there, Brooklyn’s Oxford Collapse cruise effortlessly from shoegazey dream pop (“Vernon-Jackson”) to classic college rock (“For The Winter Coats”) to Schlitz-soaked Americana (“Featherbeds”). What’s fascinating about the most criminally unsung band in NYC is the way they seem as vaguely English as bad teeth one minute, and yet power-jacked into the ’80s-America underground the next. Bassist Adam Rizer cops everything he knows from Greg Norton on the new-day-rising marvel “Back Of Yards,” while “Young Love Delivers” has singer-guitarist Michael Pace doing Brit-tinted power pop with a panache that would wow the most monobrowed of Mancunians. (SUB POP) Mike Usinger