Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Niko Wenner has been seeing life through a very different lens since the pre and post pandemic years brought him loss and big gains; his father died and went through a job change and saw some very tough times. But it also brought him a newborn child, his daughter, now almost 3 and has changed how he sees the world and makes music with his long time cohort OXBOW, who have a new record Love's Holiday (Ipecac Recordings). It's a record that is surprisingly straightforward, especially for a band that has been in the middle of the ven diagram between noise, punk, art rock and music concrete. Working with producer Joe Chicarelli (Strokes, Oingo Boingo, Michael Bublé, U2) over the pandemic brought out the rock band in them as he gently suggested that maybe going a little more traditional might in fact be the thing that makes this record stand out for this celebrated experimenting band of over 30 years. Niko is a highly educated and trained classical and jazz player, but can also throw it down with the best of the rockers. It's another brick in the fantastic wall of music that OXBOW has been making for their entire career.