Tuesday 28 August 2018

OH SEES - Smote Reverser (Album Review)

With the fluency of which ideas come to the mind of John Dwyer, Commander in chief of Californian, psych-garage-rock extraordinaires Oh Sees, it must be essential that he records as many albums as his unprecedented talent allows, or risk self-combustion.  A minimum of two LP’s a year the usual output.  With this latest exploration into rock hallucinogenica, there are moments that almost resemble traditional song-writing, the groove machine that is ‘C’ a prime example. Of course this notion is broken with absolute bone crunchers, ‘Overthrown’, along with the band’s trademark space-rock launches to destinations unknown.  After all Dwyer has become the key-master of the genre, able to alter his surroundings at will.

John Peel famously described The Fall as “always different, always the same”, which can also be said of Oh Sees.  ‘Smote Reverser’ delivers everything  you expect from an Oh Sees album, whilst surprising throughout.  The Oh Sees influence has surfaced of late, with a string of psyche bands making waves, and while King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are very good, Oh Sees are great. 
 
Words by Ben Barry.
 
 

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