"What's the first thing you think of when someone mentions Thee Oh Sees? Probably their riot-sparking live show, right? Visions of a guitar-chewing, melody-maiming John Dwyer careening across your cranium, rounded out by a wild-eyed wrecking crew that drives every last hook home like it's a nail in the coffin of what you thought it meant to make 21st-century rock 'n' roll? Yeah, that sounds about right. But it misses a more important point -- how impossible Thee Oh Sees have been to pin down since Dwyer launched the project in the late '90s as a solo break from such sorely missed underground bands as Pink and Brown and Coachwhips. Now, Thee Oh Sees chase the home-brewed symphonies of Castlemania with the scrappy, high-wire hooks of Carrion Crawler / The Dream. Originally envisioned as two EPs, it was cut live to tape in less than a week at Chris Woodhouse's Sacramento studio in June, reflecting the battering-ram bent of the band's live show better than any bootleg ever could. 'As I'm sure most would agree,' explains Dwyer, 'Castlemania was more of a vocal tirade. This one's meant to pummel and throb.' That it does, whether one blasts the slow, speaker-bruising build of 'The Dream,' the sunburnt organs and dovetailing guitars of 'Crack in Your Eye' or the interstellar instrumental 'Chem-Farmer,' a perfect example of what happens when one takes a well-oiled machine -- a gang of rabid road warriors, really -- and adds a second, groove-locked drum set to the mix. To listen is to realize that Dwyer's music is as manic as the underground comic inclinations of his artwork; colorful and confusing in a way that's more than welcome. It's downright refreshing, like a slap in the face at 5:00 in the morning. Or, as Dwyer puts it, 'You have to leave a mark somehow.'" - In The Red Recordings

• 2011 full-length from John Dwyer's Oh Sees
• magenta colored vinyl
• includes printed insert
• limited edition
• original release year: 2011
• music label: In The Red Recordings 2022