See, Thee Oh Sees understand the intrinsic value of making a huge mess.Carrion crawlers scour putrid flesh from carcasses and gobble the slimy bones that remain. Short blasts of distortion leave their mark throughout the album, guitar tones evoking the image of exploding paint cans in a mid-size room, adding to the unruly spirit of the band's albums and live sets. Much like last year’s "Warm Slime"- the audio equivalent of a pro-wrestling iron man match- "Carrion Crawler" and "The Dream" experiment with what happens when you tighten things to a breaking point and then let go. This is particularly evident on the album's two longform tracks, the two songs that combine to make up the album's title. His solos are not as much foot-on-the-monitor, spotlight-capturing moments as they are products of primal instinct. Scratching away at his strings with bloodthirsty ferociousness, Dwyer's guitar playing is best described in terms usually reserved for feral cats. But more often than not, it sounds like Dwyer is singing backup for Dawson, a testament to how equal the parts in Thee Oh Sees really are. Dawson provides poppy "ba-bas," while Dwyer shouts his head off on "Contraption/Soul Desert", and she's there to eerily coo while he's practically speaking in tongues on "Crack in Your Eye". As Dawson's straight-laced vocal presence stays in line on most of the songs, Dwyer naturally plays the madman, his voice coasting below, zigzagging between, and occasionally even scaling above hers- the latter reminiscent of the way Black Francis would often take the higher octave over Kim Deal on several Pixies tracks. In spite of the former being the creative nucleus of the band, there is no "lead singer" designation in Thee Oh Sees- Dwyer and Dawson singing nearly every lyric in unison. Having the bassist and two drummers holding everything in place gives the high end room to explore, a task in part handled by the extraordinary vocal interplay of Dwyer and Dawson.
Dammit, Shoun, and now Finberg serve as the grounded basis that allow the songs to veer off on wild tangents without completely falling apart. Instead of disrupting the dynamic, Finberg fits in perfectly, occasionally adding some polyrhythmic flair, bolstering the already tight and rock-solid rhythm section.
Many of the album's songs have been road-tested for over a year, and Intelligence brain-trust Lars Finberg was drafted as the band's second drummer.
Carrion crawler cracked#
Just as Castlemania was the apotheosis of Dwyer's cracked vision as a singer/songwriter, Carrion Crawler/The Dream showcases the full-band version of Thee Oh Sees at the height of their powers. The opening seconds of Carrion Crawler/The Dream feature the squawking of a saxophone- the last remnants of Castlemania's woodwind-centered psychedelia sputtering out like smoke from a 1920s automobile that ran out of gas. (You know, the kind of people who own more than two volumes of Back From the Grave or take a road trip to Gonerfest every single year.) Rife with kaleidoscopic woodwind arrangements and vocals akin to the green cartoon monsters that grace the cover art of many Oh Sees full-lengths, the record was a refreshingly weird slab of hallucinogenic psych-pop, a headphones record for the arty garage-rock über-faithful. Most of the band's best albums serve as recorded documents of their live sets you can practically hear Dwyer swallowing microphones and spitting upwards to the rafters.Ĭastlemania- Thee Oh Sees' first record of 2011- made it easier to remember that the band started out as Dwyer's solo project, a vehicle forged as a left turn from the eardrum terrorism of his garage-punk cult heroes Coachwhips.
An Oh Sees show is a place where combing the floor for your shoes when the house lights come on becomes ritualistic, where getting kicked in the face by a renegade crowd-surfer provokes a shit-eating grin instead of a scowl. With unspeakable chemistry and an instinctual bond that borders on telepathic, the band has taken its wildly cacophonous and setlist-free live show to must-see status, turning music venues populated by arm-folding spectators into anarchic riot scenes. Much of their appeal comes from the fact that they're a machine with four equal parts: the wide-eyed, cult-leader charisma of frontman John Dwyer, the effortless cool of keyboardist/singer Brigid Dawson, the pulsating low end of Petey Dammit, and the steel-solid rhythmic anchor of Mike Shoun. Propulsive, careening, and at times, openly dangerous, Thee Oh Sees are like the house band for a runaway train.
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