In The Red Recordings – 235
Not sure what else to say really at this point about John Dwyer and Thee
Oh Sees crew. We've loved pretty much everything they've put out, we've
made at least one an aQ Record Of The Week, heck, Andee even put out
the very first Thee Oh Sees record (back when it was just Dwyer and was a
whole 'nother beast simply called OCS), but as with every record,
Putrifiers II has much to recommend it, and has a lot of cool stuff
going on, that definitely makes it super distinctive, and as seems to be
the case, with every new record, we find ourselves proclaiming it our
favorite, and looks like that trend is going to continue, cuz Putrifiers
II is so great. All it should take is a minute or two of opener "Wax
Face", with its spidery snake charmer melody that leads directly into
some seriously fuzzed out garage rock pound, super melodic, with
swoonsome falsetto vox, woozy basslines, and of course hooks galore. The
song gets all droney, and psychedelic, with some killer leads, and a
killer stretch midsong where the vocals harmonize with the guitar, we're
tempted to say it's the raddest jam yet, but that would be foolish with
nine more songs to go! (That's right, this is a ten song "ep", more
like a full-length really.)
The one thing that Putrefiers does display, is a definite sixties pop
vibe, from the fuzzy almost Elephant Six sound of "Hang A Picture", to
some of the other tracks that take the Beach Boys and run them through
an old beat up distortion pedal and douse them liberally with sweat and
blood, taking the hooky dreaminess and harnessing it to some serious
psych fuzz bliss. The whole record is brimming with amazing songs and
sounds, "So Nice" is a gorgeous bit of buzz drenched balladry, with some
swirling strings and weird processed vox, "Cloud #1" is some super
abstract minimal drone music, that reminds us of Amps For Christ,
"Flood's New Light" is total girl group worship, while the title track
is a gorgeously catchy reverb heavy garage pop dirge that is WAY
catchier than it has any right to be.
The final four songs definitely make up a sort of orchestral garage pop
suite, the woozy shimmery ballroom vibe of "Will We Be Scared", the
fuzzed out chug and churn of "Lupine Dominus", which has verses that
would be right at home in a much dreamier, less tripped out and
psychedelic pop song, "Goodnight Baby" is another string driven bit of
jangly power pop, and finally, "Wicked Park" is lush and lovely baroque
popsmithery, that sounds like it could be a cover of The Zombies, or
even some old Bee Gees B side.