Oh Sees - Orc

The Quietus

Oh Sees had hinted at making a concept album with the separate-but-connected construction of A Weird Exits and An Odd Entrances, but nothing quite like the intergalactic mix that is their 19th record Orc. And, the best part about it is the Oh Sees manages to make this shift while still sounding like themselves, holding true with some killer bursts of distorted guitar and psychedelic reverb throughout. Filled with caricatured vocals, high-pitched guitar solos and spacey interludes, Orc is consistently mind-boggling and ear-tingling. It seems as though the Oh Sees (formerly ‘Thee Oh Sees’) have transitioned from a consistently good jammy group into one that is brainy, brawny and innovative.

The album starts with a screeching guitar solo on single ‘The Static God’, quite literally evoking physical shock at first listen. Despite its experimental edge, Orc is still a hard-hitting rock album without doubt, kick-ass guitar solos, and spooky-hardcore lyrics (“Night freaks, speed freaks, squeeze into tight lace for god's sake go and try / prosthesis masquerade they all complain nighttime exposition!”). However, even this introductory track hints at the more groovy and eclectic interludes that give the whole record such striking dimension, with a minute-long synthy interlude two thirds of the way through. Rather than easing the listener in and out of the artsier bit, it jerks them around, ripping them out of ‘Keys To The Castle’'s hypnotic 70s slumber with nothing other than a loud, distorted guitar and drum fills. ‘Cadaver Dog’ sounds like a revamped deep cut from The Wall, and ‘Paranoise’ evokes Twin Peaks-level weird hypnosis.

The end of the album, however, is the most sonically different from the Oh Sees previous work, with ‘Cooling Tower’ seeming to take inspiration from Classics-era Ratatat as the album leans into mostly instrumental tracks with stylistically differing verses, bridges, and choruses. ‘Raw Optics’ even feels like a high-speed rock version of a musical overture, perfectly encapsulating the atypical reincarnation of the Oh Sees still satisfying garage rock jams. The resulting record is a fast, rickety, and totally exciting rollercoaster through the mind of a madman, a demon, a crackhead or perhaps whatever odd purple creature glares at you from the album’s cover – requiring a moment to catch your breath in the aftermath of it all. It’s a whirlwind, to say the least, and definitely not for the faint of heart.

The drums stand out most on the album, with a marked lack of vocals in favour of longer instrumental intros and outros throughout. Double drummers Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon keep tempo between songs that change speeds and genres consistently, from thundering heavy rock on ‘The Static God’ to latin-sounding grooves on ‘Jettison’ to something vaguely psych-rock jazzy at the very end on ‘Raw Optics’. The success is exciting, as some fans may have been slightly skeptical after the emotional rollercoaster they experienced from awesome double-drum tracks on An Odd Entrances and A Weird Exits to the departure of drummer Ryan Moutinho to now the acquisition of Quattrone. However, the album proves the new foursome to be an undoubtedly awesome success.

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Pitchfork 74

With their latest full-length, and a minor name change, John Dwyer’s garage-punk band continues to travel further toward rock’s outer limits.

Drowned In Sound 60

The adaptation has not come out of nowhere. In 2013, Dwyer overhauled the band’s line-up, opting instead for the bold move of having two drummers on board – now Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon. The dual albums A Weird Exits and An Odd Entrances in 2016 gave indications of the oncoming shift, but on Orc, the pace slows rather dramatically. Also different is the band name – the Thee is gone, the most indefinite of articles. It is at least the seventh name change of the band’s career though, so probably not worth reading too much into it.

The change is not immediately apparent. Opener and lead single ‘The Static God’ bursts in on a high-pitched, speed punk guitar solo, skidding back into play whenever it feels like it during the song’s duration, trading blows with snapped vocals. It is what we have come to expect, and a joy. But by the time we launch into ‘Nite Expo’, we are swarming with squealing synths and bass notes that shoot out like laser sheets. And then ‘Animated Violence’ hits, with its metal vocals and clean Iron Maiden solos, as we picture the sign of the horns flying high in the studio. These are changes, but still absolutely a joy. Each new track a treasure trove, a hamper with an unadvertised list of ingredients.

But alas, the surprises do not stay this exciting throughout. The album’s centrepiece is the eight-minute ‘Keys to the Castle’, which after a storming three minute start slows dramatically, as if Oh Sees have taken a stroll into the wildnerness on a voyage of discovery. It results in a strangely wild and hypnotic circular loop, something the band are easily good enough to lock into and make interesting. But the album never recovers from the drop in pace, and it’s only half way through.

The second half is comprised of a series of songs that either rely on swampy, languid solos (‘Cadaver Dog’, ‘Drowned Beast’) or space-age synths (‘Paranoise’). ‘Cooling Tower’, on the other hand, is punctuated by “ah ah ah” vocal stabs, whilst clanging guitar notes meander and fill out the space in the runtime. ‘Jettison’, one of the stronger tracks in the sequence, appears to be inspired by the same hard R&B sound that drove forward bands like Free and Led Zeppelin, something Dwyer could replicate with his foot on the brake. Final track ‘Raw Optics’ simmers along before giving its time over to a drum battle between Quattrone and Rincon as its final blowout.

When you make as much music as Dwyer does, you are fully entitled to move around the musical map at will, but it is no coincidence that the moments when Dwyer’s writing strays furthest from the familiar format are the least satisfying. It is reasonable to assume that he is capable of far more intriguing and stimulating excursions than these. It’s something worth bearing in mind the next time you long for an artist to switch things up a bit – Orc is most exciting when it is Oh Sees doing their thing.