Oil & Gold

Oil & Gold

Oil & Gold, the third full-length Shriekback album, is widely considered the band's highest moment. Released in 1985 on Island Records after the failure of 1984's Jam Science on Arista Records, Oil & Gold saw the band metamorphose from contemplative to rocking. The addition of Martyn Barker on drums and Lu Edmonds on guitar gives many of the songs an almost punk rock feeling.

In many ways, Oil & Gold is the bridge between the old trio of Barry Andrews, Carl Marsh, and Dave Allen, and the new vehicle for Andrews alone. Longtime singer Marsh left the band halfway through the recording, leaving Andrews to take over the vocals. Still, the album's highlights, including the three opening songs, sung by Marsh, and the minor hit, "Nemesis", became the band's signature sound.

The two songs "This Big Hush" and "Coelocanth" were featured in Michael Mann's 1986 film Manhunter and "Faded Flowers" was featured in Band of the Hand. The song "Everything That Rises Must Converge" refers to the short story of that name by Flannery O'Connor. The song "Nemesis" is about the hypothetical star orbiting the Sun.

Read more about Oil & Gold:  Track Listing, Personnel

Famous quotes containing the words oil and/or gold:

    No skilled hands
    caress a stranger’s flesh with lucid oil before
    a word is spoken
    no feasting
    before a tale is told, before
    the stranger tells his name.
    Denise Levertov (b. 1923)

    Then leaf subsides to leaf.
    So Eden sank to grief,
    So dawn goes down to day.
    Nothing gold can stay.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)