Live Review: Ezekiel Ox, King Of The North

King Of The North have been a little on the quiet side of late, so it’s great to see them grace the Old Bar stage with Ezekiel Ox on the last night of his January Thursday residency. The rockin’ two-piece thunder through a mighty 40-minute set of their favourites. King Of The North make a spontaneous but coordinated racket just between the two of them, Andrew Higgs switching up between guitars and bass guitars and utilising his "three from one guitar pedal" to great effect and Tom Jones thundering around his kit at every opportunity – it's really quite astonishing. They fill the intimate venue with a raucous rock sound. This band is equal parts Acca Dacca and Led Zeppelin, all wrapped up in a modern rock package that is all their own. Hopefully 2019 signals a serious return to the fold for this band.

Ezekiel Ox, the man of many bands (Mammal, Superheist, Full Scale, Over-Reactor, to name but a few), has had his solo thing going as well for a few years now, and it’s been evolving beautifully, getting tighter, more confident, and developing more of a street-sussed swagger to it. It is also starting to stand on its own two feet. Now that Mammal are back together, there are no Mammal tracks to be heard, just his solo works and a couple of choice covers.

The set runs the gamut of exhilarating hard-rock, funk, hip hop, powerful political commentary, a cover of the classic Dylan anti-war anthem Masters Of War and, when an audience member loudly and assertively demands an encore, a completely off-the-cuff but note-perfect a cappella version of another great song of protest and rebellion, The Living End’s Prisoner Of Society. It’s a great moment.

The band the Ox has put behind himself is phenomenal. All three, Sarox Martin on bass, Leigh Davies on guitar, Steve Smith on drums, are ridiculously gifted on their individual instruments and are skilled lead vocalists in their own right, which is why the a cappella is so very sweet. 

Then of course there is the man himself up front, as over-the-top and insanely entertaining as usual, with regular forays into the crowd, jumping on chairs and tables. The Ezekiel Ox band is yet another growing force in the man’s musical arsenal.