The Oxygen Ponies – Harmony Handgrenade

The Oxygen Ponies. Oxygen Ponies! What a brilliantly crazed name for a musical act. Combine that with the fact that this album is called Harmony Handgrenade and has a picture of a lemon with a grenade's pin sticking out of it, and you have a record which just begs to be listened to even without knowing anything at all about what to expect. I'll be honest and say that I wass slightly disappointed when the album didn't transpire to be something completely mad, like Peruvian acid-punk or something.It was a juvenile assumption of mine that this music would be mental, but as is so often the way, the rather more sober reality is more satisfying than what I'd imagined. The Oxygen Ponies is largely Paul Megna, a songwriter born in Massachussetts who, we are informed on his website, has overcome more than his fair share of unfortunate incidents - the worst of which was arguably being shot by a sniper in Hell's Kitchen, New York. His chaotic life has presumably contributed to his world-weary, husky voice, a perfect for the music contained on Harmony Handgrenade.Primarily built on acoustic instrumentation, containing flourishes like saxophone, child choirs, and strings, this is an album of mature and confident songwriting which varies from personal to political, introspective to strident. Often all in the same song. Megna's juxtaposition of the personal and political goes more than skin-deep - he presents the two as inextricably linked. Love, he explains, is the weapon to combat war, but sometimes love itself can be defined in warlike terms. The struggle seems to be a tiring one, given the album's frequently warmly lethargic vocals and lyrical themes of becoming bored and exhausted of conflict. The music itself is never infected with this lethargy, however, at least not in a negative way - instead, Harmony Handgrenade is frequently breezy and laid-back, with an inviting atmosphere. Megna's troubled and weary, but he's good company.There are some lovely cathartic moments, especially the soaring conclusions to opener "Love Yr Way" and "Grab Yr Gun", which urges us to "let love be your guide." In sections like this, the instrumentation is varied - vocals, backing vocals, tambourine, strings, trumpet - but nothing is overbearing or intrusive. There's a lot about Megna's sound and style that are reminiscent of Dan Mangan's work: the voice, the great maturity of style and tone, the slightly ramshackle aesthetic. The Oxygen Ponies are a little more accessible here though - Megna displays a thorough understanding and dependance on melody, even on darker and more dissonant tracks like "Finger Trigger" on which Megna says "I can feel the terrorist inside of me". Evidently, Megna is not always interested in making simple points, further shown by the perplexing "Villains", the album's longest and most ambitious song.There's a great deal of emotion, wit and thoughtfulness in these ten songs. Harmony Handgrenade is a lush, accomplished album which does not open all its pleasures in one go, but rather massages them slowly into the listener, telling its quintessentially 21st century stories - all anger, dispossession and confusion tempered by conviction and optimism. A thoroughly engaging listen. 84%The Oxygen Ponies on MySpace