By the time you read this, Thee Oh Sees will either have released a billion more singles and half as many more albums, or will have ceased to exist, knowing John Dwyer's penchant for combustion. Many words have been wasted on his past projects, all of which have been quite fine indeed (Coachwhips, Yikes, Pink and Brown, Zeigenbock Kopf, Dig That Body Up, It's Alive!, Burmese, Landed, Swords and Sandals, etc.), but there is something of a crystallization of all past styles in the most recent Oh Sees music. For a project that began as solo mumblings/droolings several years ago, and meandered through various unfocused folky (unfolkused?) albums before cranking it up starting with 2007's Sucks Blood, an equally meandering and unfocused affair.
Yet again, all of these were fine efforts, and all are worth seeking out for fine moments: 3's“If I had a Reason”, 4's “Cookie Destroyer”, not to mention everything released by the Coachwhips, Pink and Brown's Shame Fantasy II, and Yikes' Whoa Comas or Blood Bomb. However, pretty much everything Thee Oh Sees have released since 2008's super-fine The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In has been an absolute delight. The most distorted garage yowlings and yatterings to have surfaced since (__________ ), John seems to have finally found a crew that can beat time to his perverted duckwalk. Although they've definitely folked it up and then some since the fleshing-out (late 2009's Dog Poison), never for a moment have they left behind the distortion and space echo.
New full-time members Brigid Dawson (vocals, tambourine, and flute), Petey Dammit (guitar), and Mike Shoun (drums) sound like they've been rehearsing for this opportunity for years, just waiting to be Dwyer-clones. As John Dwyer has played virtually every instrument in the umpteen-dozen bands he's blazed through thus far, it seems natural that he attract collaborators sharing his approach to instrumentation. There's the sense that this incarnation may be somewhat more permanent as a result of this, with the chaos limited to the songs' contents rather than completely enveloping the band (as evidenced by every Coachwhips show ending when too much equipment had been broken to continue).
The feeling of summation here is embodied in the member selection as much as the sound: there's a fair amount of whoop-ass Coachwhips drumming, but tempered with Dwyer's own more-spastic-yet-simultaneously-more-controlled approach used in Swords and Sandals. Petey Dammit's second guitar likewise mimics Dwyer's double-duty in Pink and Brown and the Coachwhips, working as rhythmic anchor, bass line, and harmonic compliment all in one. Brigid Dawson sounds remarkably like Dwyer's multi-tracked falsetto from early OCS recordings (the solo moniker used before other members joined and became Thee Oh Sees), although the flute is entirely her own doing. Managing to reclaim the instrument minus the 70s jazz-cheese, the flute is used to either enhance mood (The Master's Bedroom's “Graveyard Drug Party”) or provide a more melodic breakdown (Help's “Meat Step Lively”).
For music that's seemingly more about the exploration of a unique sonic world as it is about conveyance of genuine emotion and/or conceptual fare (John Dwyer has always seemed content to thrash around like an electrified Muppet), Thee Oh Sees manage to throw in a large dose of beat-heavy dance-ability. While previous efforts have occasionally suffered from a lack of diversity (and a more frequent lack of momentum), the newer material manages to marry the more ethereal screaming drones of Dwyer's heavily echoed guitar to the precision-ramshackle boogie rhythms of Dammit & Shoun.
Like the Velvet Underground, this combination makes for a potent marriage of propulsion and distortion, a tension between tunefulness and full-on chaos. As many standout songs as there are in their catalogue (and this piece really only lists a few, and not even this author's favorites, just the convenient examples), there are easily an equal number of moments that flow river-like from one song into another, and if you hear the same riff twice, it rarely is in the same context as when you first heard it. Generally, I can't help but see this as an extension of my belief in the Album/Single as a collection of songs in service of a greater end (even beyond a sustained mood—it is a conceptual item of attitudinal unity, a creation with a will of its own). To really hear what this band is capable of (and they haven't even shown their entire hand yet), the listener needs to hear a selection of their material. “Tidal Wave” next to “Heart Sweats”, “Visit Colonel” into “Grease 2”, “Destroyed Fortress Reappears” and “Peanut Butter Oven” are all combinations that—while not necessarily rivaling “Love -> Building on Fire” in terms of related structures—lend a certain satisfaction, a completion of an idea in the second that's begun in the first.
What's most impressive, however, is the sheer volume of material (songs or rivers) they have released since things started getting so good ‘n twisted. At the time of writing, there have been 5 albums in the past two years (not including the different CD and LP track listings for the Zork's Tape Bruise compilations—the CD contains some singles, the LP has twice as many demos), plus 9 singles and a compilation track. True, during this time Dwyer has not committed his time to another project, but it doesn't really account for the sharp focus most of this material has. It seems he's finally applying all his energy to a single focal point, allowing an audience to build more easily--or maybe not, as he seems just as willing to indulge himself whenever the notion takes.
Perhaps that's the real secret to his success here, the ability to create an environment where structure seems just as natural as a lack thereof. As many times as classic forms are indulged, vocals are rarely decipherable, most guitar solos end up as anything but, and deconstruct themselves as frequently as they rock out--often simultaneously, as on Help's “Ruby Go Home” or The Master's Bedroom's “Two Drummers Disappear”. These endless contradictions continue to embody Thee Oh Sees in a way that makes their next steps more thrilling to watch than most.
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