Oakland, California isn’t a place renowned for its physical beauty. People of that opinion, though, probably haven’t gone for a visit. The hills of neighboring San Francisco have always been more enticing to outsiders, which is understandable. But Oakland sports more than pretty much anyone would be able to guess at.

In the city, there’re probably some weird mutant creatures running around. The place is pretty dirty – it’s the Cleveland of the West Coast. But there are probably at least a few animals kicking around which utilize an ovipositor, some set of organs used in procreation. Obtuse, might be a way to describe the opening to this write up, but we’re getting there.

Ovipositor, though, is a band as well. And it’s from Oakland. One might guess that at least one person involved in the group has some animal fixation. If not, it’d be difficult to figure out where that name came from.

Either way, though, I hadn’t run into the band prior to seeing its Oakland Minor the other day, which is odd since I’d lived over there for a while. In contrast to its brethren in Mushroom, this group, which also claims a kraut influence (but who doesn’t now?), there’s not a jazzy angle to the music. Instead, it’s kind of an updated Half Japanese with tougher sounding instrumentation and purposefully discordant progressions as opposed to the hapless song writing of Jad Fair.

That may have been the first time that comparison’s been made, but “14^th Floor,” after you get over trying to tie it German rock stuffs, is all almost in tune singing and sloppy guitar. So, yeah, the Fairs aren’t to far off from wherever the disc sits in American music. The next track, though, amps up a Midwester hard rock thing.

Even before realizing that Ovipositor is working to cover Pere Ubu’s “Navvy,” the song’s introduction sounds like the Stooges a bit. Too bad the rest of the song’s pretty bland. And for whatever reason, the band decides to yell part of the chorus in a surprisingly shotty Brit accent. At least it wasn’t a Sex Pistols cover.

Beyond the shock picked up from those accents, the fact that Ovipositor managed a deal with some foreign label, a German one at that, is confusing. Aren’t there average bands over-seas? There have to be. But if there aren’t, this band’ll probably be able to tour over there on the strength (?) of this disc.