Ox

Tonight Canada has conquered it’s very own corner of London; the Borderline is host to an evening of alt.country mapleros, quietly persuading the handful of onlookers that Nickelback were nothing but an unfortunate glitch. The best of bunch and, not coincidentally, the headliners are *Ox*, a three-piece with a musical foot placed firmly in the mid-South.

Quickly dispensing with the majestic ‘Transam’, it soon becomes clear exactly how naturally these world-weary songs translate to a live context. The sound is touchingly organic, with singer Mark Browning’s straining, emotive voice providing a perfect vehicle. ‘Stolen Bike’ may be a sugar-sweet ode to mischief, but it’s the wide-eyed love songs (‘Carolinah’, ‘Oh Eileen’) that really hit a nerve. Like Wilco’s early material or Whiskey Town before them, Ox’s set sounds at once both timeless and unmistakably of its era.

If there was ever a need to strip music down to its raw elements, Ox have the purity and grace to pull it off. And that’s easily enough to raise them high above the crowd.