he live album has been somewhat of a farce to me because it seldom accomplishes anything. The LP is the artist’s godly domain, the space through which his ideas are given the concentration they deserve and would otherwise lack. Emblazoned permanently are the right notes, the right harmonies, the right melodies, imperiled no more by the threat of recreating a specific experience. The live album is usually a clumsy, sputtering, sometimes calamitous homework assignment. It tries to push the viscerally ineffable experience of a concert through a single sensual conduit and results in a flaccid token of the ideal type.

Sometimes, however, the studio album pulsates with such a physical presence that it’s almost live. Iggy and The Stooges’ Fun House or Mission of Burma’s Vs. capture precisely the physicality of music that live albums could not and even managed to rival the real show. Sure, there are certainly bands today in possession of the same verve, but seldom is it toted viscerally, seldom does a producer’s sagacious manipulation of Pro Tools translate to kinetic sound. But on Oxford Collapse’s sophomore album, A Good Ground, you find a rare energy. It’s not merely the feral nature of their musicianship, but the intelligence which appends that ferocity which makes the album so, shit, kick-ass.

What’s rather unique about this album is their dedication to structure, their deliberate attentiveness to carving the outlines of each song with methodic gusto. “The Boys Go Home” begins with shimmering guitars until Dan Fetherson comes in on drums, but viewed syntactically the song isn’t all too novel. You see the bridge coming in, you recognize the chorus is coming, yet it’s the actualization of both that’s rather exhilarating. “And when the party’s over / All the boys go home alone” sings Michael Page with an almost drunken disregard for vocal melody while Fetherson—who perhaps plays the most physically of the band—pounds the skins without due concern for propriety.

That energy is never dulled—even when they enter predominantly pop terrain, as on the mostly instrumental “Cracks in the Causeway,” since the attempt there is to be efficient, not clean. The subtleties are, in effect, evident with whatever melodies they choose, but the performance is always the centerpiece. In that respect the album cannot be replicated, even though such a declaration may sound vacuous since some of the worst albums also cannot be replicated. But what I speak of is the actual process of the album’s formation, and for Oxford Collapse that tag is ever present. You never lose sight of the performance or the performers.

The second half does admittedly slouch a little bit—“Volunteers” doesn’t seem to gel completely—but it’s still rife with anthems like “Keep ‘Em In A Canyon” and “Flaws.” With A Good Ground, Oxford Collapse has created an album in the tradition of Fugazi or Sonic Youth, one brimming with inarguable talent and a fidelity to the act of music. Eventually not only will you think that the live album is a sham, but concerts themselves may prove unsatisfactory.