Oh Sees - (2017) Memory of a Cut Off Head 2x12''

 Castle Face ‎– 100

Just days after Thee Oh Sees released their first album under their new moniker, Oh Sees, frontman John Dwyer announced his group’s second name change of the summer. They’re back to being just OCS, as they were known when hardly anybody was listening, and unlike their last rebrand, this one marks a genuine change of course. Pivoting away from the numbing garage rock pummel of their recent albums, which had a two-drummer lineup, their upcoming record, Memory of a Cut Off Head, returns Dwyer and company to the mellow, quilted folk of their earliest releases.
On the album’s opening, title track, Dwyer sounds every bit as at ease as he did over the wild Richter-scale energy of his recent records. It helps that his former accompanist Brigid Dawson has rejoined him as a duet partner. She’s a calming presence; her friendly voice accentuates the sweetness of this folk song. With its prim, string-cushioned arrangement and callbacks to the English folk of the 1960s, “Memory of a Cut Off Head” is lusher and lovelier than anything from the last incarnation of Oh Sees, almost uncannily graceful. Yet Dwyer can’t resist a little mischief: As if to keep his string section on its toes, he juices the chorus with a rapid tempo spike, and for a few moments, the orderly tune threatens to spin off its rails. It’s a prankster’s power play—a reminder that Dwyer created this gorgeous little tableau, and he can destroy it just as easily.