Monday, August 28, 2017

#2587 Thee Oh Sees - Orc

Thee Oh Sees will not be stopped, and are unassailably the best guitar band going right now. While also-rans like Ty Segall and King Gizzard fuck around with detuned softspoken nonsense, these dudes are keeping their foot on the goddamn gas, riding a three-album hit streak of bonkers distortion-drenched, high-powered rock velocity.

Orc lands somewhere between the bristly energy of Mutilator and the superhuman force of Weird Exits -- it's the Sees most enjoyable experimental album, and also their most adventurous heavy album. Keys to the Castle's an 8 minute wanderer that hypnotizes you with visceral guitars and distant strings into a place beyond the notion of boredom. Elsewhere ringing organs and shrieking yelps and electronic fizzes and guitars and guitars and guitars drive you to the edge of a 60's that never was. Destined to be a cult favorite, at worst, if there's any justice in the world 4.5/5

ps: something I thing about a lot. In the 90's we looked back on the great albums from the 60's, and found hidden gems that rose up from among the major label dreck by the collective force of good taste. And I guess I assume something similar will happen to the good albums of this time, that albums we love now will have cache in 30 years. But maybe its another time, another world, where ease of production and diffusion of opinion will retard the necessary upwelling. Also, trick question, this whole place's gonna be a dead space rock some time between now and the 8th Trump administration

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