UNCUT December 2006

“Comets Ghosts and Sunburned Hands”, UNCUT’s Guide to the New Psychedelic Outlaws. Comp CD, Track 2, “Hiway” from the album Second Guessing

Brooklyn’s Oakley Hall are a great example of a band moving out of leftfield to make a more accessible brand of cosmic Americana… exuberant, levitating country rock… “Hiway” is the standout from the first of their two 2006 LPs, coming on like a hybrid of Loaded-era Velvets and somewhat hairier Southern Rock.

ROLLING STONE "NEW ARTIST TO WATCH" December 2006

Interview: ...the Brooklyn six-piece- who took their name from Thomas Pynchon’s favorite cult novelist- mixes pristine coed harmonies and banjo-and-fiddle arrangements with shambling folk and fuzzy rave-ups. In 2002, singer-guitarist Pat Sullivan formed Oakley Hall with some country-curious buddies. The band recently signed with Merge Records, and judging from the excellent Gypsum Strings, Oakley Hall have come a long way since beginning as a ten-member collective playing honky-tonk covers in Lower East Side dives. “There was a lot of booze involved then,” Sullivan says. “Gradually, we got our shit together.” ...As they pared down their lineup, Oakley Hall got better at certain pure-country elements while trying some less than conventional sounds: Claudia Mogel runs her fiddle through Marshall stacks, and Fred Wallace plays a Fender electric strung up like a banjo. “Our interest has always been in people who took country and made it their own,” Sullivan says. ...[CHRISTIAN HOARD]

(See the rest of this interview in Rolling Stone’s Yearbook ‘06 issue

UNCUT December 2006

Top 50 Albums of 2006

ROLLING STONE December 2006

The 100 Best Songs of 2006

TIME OUT NEW YORK November 2006

Perhaps the best live rock band in NYC…

SKYSCRAPER July 2006

And Then, There Were Six

What do you do if you decide to leave a band infamous for its blistering live shows and interpersonal chemistry just as it is rising to previously unknown levels of popularity? If you are Pat Sullivan, formerly Papa Crazee of Brooklyn’s Oneida, you start from scratch and form a new band infamous for its blistering live shows and interpersonal chemistry that seems poised to experience heretofore unknown levels of popularity… [SHANE MILLER]

UNCUT June 2006

Gypsum Strings review: 4 stars

Notable not just for the fact that this is Oakley Hall’s second full-length album in three months, Gypsum Strings sees these Brooklynites augmenting the sepiatone contry-folk of previous efforts with Krautrock drones, wildly psychedelic guitar whooshing from Pat ‘Papa Crazee’ Sullivan and Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase on tablas. But the grace with which Oakley Hall combine their creaky porchside laments and saucer-eyed Cosmic American Music suggests that their second album of 2006 is also likely to be one of the year’s very best. [PAT LONG]

THE SUN August 2006

Gypsum Strings: 4.5 out of 5

Country-folk-grunge-psychedelia anyone? These New Yorkers throw caution to the wind for a thrilling fusion of styles with spectacular results… While songs like Confidence Man and Lazy Susan pack a powerful lo-fi punch, Living in Sin in the USA is a prime example of rootsy balladry and Nite Lights, Dark Days is a lilting country romp. It all ends with the lightest of touches on Spanish Fandango, a simple, tuneful instrumental. Oakley hall may be off-radar to all but a few in the UK, but this open-minded testament to creativity should win the sextet plenty of new friends.

FILTER July 2006

Gypsum Strings review:

Oakley Hall the novelist crafts grainy literary portriats of the West. Oakley Hall the band paints sonic landscapes from amber waves of fuzz, all the while hanging their hats in… Brooklyn? Their third album smelts Young’s slouch with Cale’s searing cityscapes, misshaping ancient Scottish folk and pleasing harmonies into a complexity that doesn’t fit into the predictably square alt-country spittoon. With their second full-length in 2006 (already), Oakley Hall has transitioned from a carefully crafted Oneida spin-off to a legitimate creative force capable of genre bending without losing grace or authenticity. [MARC SAUSSANT]

POP MATTERS March 2006

...no matter what its station happens to be, what city it calls home, Second Guessing‘s swimming in a simple kind of beautiful… The words come from the everyday. The instruments come from the fingers, and then out of big old amplifiers. Vocals come from male and female, converging sweetly in the middle—right where they should. It’s seamless, and pretty, and ought not be so surprising.

...more here

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