Carrion Crawler/The Dream was easily one of my favorite albums of 2011. A mix of raw punk blues and stretched out kraut-surf grooves made it one of my ultimate late night speeding-down-the-highway albums. With two hard hitting drummers in Michael Shoun and Lars Finberg, the album captured the band's live sound perfectly. Now less than a year later, the band brings us Putrifiers II, the 15th studio album from Thee Oh Sees.
Gone is the two drummer lineup of Carrion Crawler; on Putrifiers II frontman John Dwyer goes back to his earlier days and takes full control of its' creation. Writing all the songs, playing most of the instruments himself, and recording in a mere five days, the album could easily be seen as a solo release. With a only few guest musicians (most notably Mikal Cronin on sax), and only one other member of the current Oh Sees touring band (Brigid Dawson on vocals), Dwyer dug deeper than ever into the sound of 60's psychedelic rock.
Still there is just enough Stooges like garage rock mayhem to keep longtime fans excited. Full of wailing guitars and Ray Manzarek - "Alabama Song" organ lines, the kraut-rock-esque "Lupine Dominus" is sure to keep the kids moshing when the band hit your town. "Floods New Light" is another face melter mixing grooving driving rock with handclaps and catchy sun-drenched "Bah Bah Bah" choruses.
On Putrifiers II, Thee Oh Sees takes the listener on a trip through the 60's. The influence of The Zombies is present throughout the entire album. But also there's a bit of a Scott Walker crooner vibe on the short and sweet - "Goodnight Baby". "So Nice" takes The Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs" on a vacation to the beach. With tribal drums, a trippy tremelo vocal effect, and Kristen Dylan Edrich doing her best John Cale impersonation on viola, Dwyer sings "Remember a day when fat kids got high?". And finally one of my favorites of the record is the closing track - "Wicked Park". Preceded by a minute of "park sounds" (birds chirping etc), the song is a whimsical psychedelic folk piece of ear candy with flutes, strings and serves as the perfect ending to a very trippy album.
Where the album falters a bit is with the more experimental tracks. The six minute title song is a spooky Halloween acid trip gone bad with sound effects resembling seagulls dying and lines about guts growing in fields. "Will We Be Scared" is another low light that never seems to get off the ground. Still for the most part, the experimental tracks offer a nice segue-way into the more punk-blues numbers.
Although far from a perfect album, it's inspiring to see Thee Oh Sees continue to grow and take more risks in their music. At the same time, the band continues to play tons of shows and crank out new music at a maddening rate. Putrifiers II is a standout album in an already stellar catalogue and I'm happy to be along for the ride
(3 and 1/2 ears out of 5)
No comments:
Post a Comment