Putrifiers II

What s the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Thee Oh Sees? Probably their riot-sparking live show, right? Visions of a guitar-chewing, speaker-smothering, tongue-wagging John Dwyer careening across your cranium, chased by a wild-eyed wrecking crew that drives every last hook home like it s a nail in the coffin of what one thought it meant to make 21st century rock n roll? Yeah, that sounds about right. But it misses a more important point how impossible Thee Oh Sees have been been to pin down since Dwyer launched it in the late 90s as a solo break from such sorely missed underground bands as Pink and Brown and Coachwhips. That restlessness extends to everything from the towering, thirteen-minute title track of 2010 s Warm Smile LP to the mercurial moods of 2008 s The Master s Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In. And then there s the home-brewed symphonies of Castlemania and the high-wire hooks of Carrion Crawler / The Dream, which dropped a second drum set among sunburnt organs, dovetailing guitars and rail-jumping rhythms. If one prefers a slightly more subtle musical awakening, there s always Putrifiers II, the latest in a long line of Oh Sees albums that expands the group s sound well past your friendly neighborhood garage band. So while the space-odyssey nods of Wax Face actually sound like they re meant to melt one s ears straight off, the record s full of deviant detours, from the poison-tipped string parts and Eno-esque engineering of So Nice to the groove-locked Krautrock inclinations of Lupine Dominus. The most noticeable element may be Dwyer s melodies, however, as they reveal a softer side to his songwriting, one that makes perfect sense considering just how disparate his dust-clearing influences are. Scott Walker, The Velvet Underground, The Zombies and the experimental Japanese act Les Rallizes Denudes are but a small taste of what informed Thee Oh Sees this time around, as Dwyer returned to the multi-instrumental ways of Castlemania full-band sessions for another record are already underway and rounded out a fuller, drier sound with drummer / engineer Chris Woodhouse and special guests like Mikal Cronin (sax), Heidi Maureen Alexander (trumpet, vocals) and K Dylan Edrich (viola).